And Together We Are
by theonewhofights
Summary: Right as Mitch was thinking with some glee, Wow, I'm really not going to fall, he took his first step and his eyes left his toes. That's about when everything went to hell. (Scomiche. Pentatonix.)
1. Fall

**Hello, everyone! I have returned from my several-week-long hibernation! WHOOPEE!**

 **Just to let y'all know: during that time of not posting stuff, I was actually working on this piece. I was reading some stories on Wattpad and noticed a few of them that were about varying members of Pentatonix losing their memory. As some of you know, I have a fleeting story about Mitch falling and hitting his head, thus losing his memory (found in _Scomiche Oneshots_ ), but after posting it I realized just how broad of a topic I was trying to cover and how abrupt it was. I started writing this as an updated replacement, and then realized that all of the plot wasn't going to fit into a simple oneshot. This story then flew from my brain to my keyboard to my screen. The beginning of the mini-oneshot _And Together We Are_ is used as an opener here (that oneshot will also soon be replaced).**

 **I will say that I'm honestly interested in where this story is going and have no intentions of leaving it hanging (like, say, _The Forest of Orbis_. Sorry y'all...for now its updates are going to be infrequent and random), but it takes me a while to knock out a single chapter because, besides this introduction chapter, all of the chapters are going to be really, REALLY long. So it'll take more than a week to update this sucker. But don't worry; the update will come. I'm too in love with this concept to let it wriggle through my fingers.**

 **I'M ON WATTPAD NOW YAY! If it's easier for any of you guys to read my stories on there, please do! I'm still setting everything up though, since I'm not used to the style and everything, but all of my work will be posted on there soon.**

 _ **Humble Beginnings**_ **might not start for a while, due to factual issues. I'll talk to you guys about that story late on, but for now, the prologue I have written is going to stay unpublished.** **Thanks to you if you read all of this and the above (it's what I get for taking such a long break).**

 **Alrighty then, my readers, buckle your seatbelts. I gotta let you guys know this; I am going to put these characters through hell. And y'all are gonna be mad at me at times. I wanted to write this story to show how difficult it really is to recuperate from memory loss. I will admit I sped up Mitch's physical healing time a little (or maybe a little more than a little; he's up and walking, though painfully, in two months), but that's all. There will be times where there's fluff, there will be times where there's sex (I'll give you guys a huge disclaimer if you're not into that stuff, so please read the A/N's), there will be times when it gets rough, there will be times when...**

 **Well. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I should let you find out instead.**

 **Let's begin, shall we?**

* * *

While merely lounging around his shared apartment watching TV, the idea came to Mitch that he should take a shower. Not a long one, of course, those were reserved for specific times (like right after the brunette had accidentally drunk too much and was vomiting left and right, or when he was particularly stressed out and needed to get away from the rest of humanity...actually, never mind. Mitch took super long showers all the time), but a swift one just to wash off the invisible film of yuck that was layered on his skin, the kind of yuck that you feel after doing nothing all day and not showering at the time you usually would.

Mitch's eyes flicked to his cell phone. Without a second thought he scooped it up and clicked the home button to see the time: _5:39._ He was supposed to go sing a duet with his best friend Scott in a few hours, which meant he'd have to dress nicely, which meant that yes, he would have to take a shower, and he'd have to make it unpleasantly quick.

Sighing, the small singer reached for the television remote, shut off the screen, and heaved himself from his spot on the couch. As he walked up the stairs, he wondered over normal things; would he look good in that oversized white blazer he owned? And Scott was picking him up, right? Oh, and Kirstie had told him that she and Avi were thinking about contacting Lindsey to do another video. Her violin and Kevin's cello blended together wonderfully.

The brunette absentmindedly undressed, turned on the hot water, and slipped into the shower as the bathroom mirror began to fog. He closed his eyes and tilted his head, reveling in the heat of the steam.

For the next few minutes, Mitch took his shower in peace, sometimes singing aloud to practice, sometimes not. After ten bundles of sixty seconds passed he decided that he had better get out before his fingers transformed into prunes. His mind once again wandered to what he would wear.

It was then that the countertenor realized that oh, shit. Scott was supposed to text Mitch when he was close to the apartment, and he had wittingly left his phone downstairs.

"Dammit." He said quietly, wrapping a white towel around his thin frame so he wouldn't be walking around naked. Sure his feet were a little wet, but he trusted himself not to slip. Honestly, who really did slip and fall and crack their head open when leaving the shower? TV over dramatized everything.

That thought and the mantra _I will not fall, I will not fall, I will not fall_ led Mitch out into the cool hallway floor, and he carefully padded his way towards the top of the stairs (and, despite his chant, kept his wary eyes on his feet).

Right as he was thinking with some glee, _Wow, I'm really not going to fall,_ he took his first step and his eyes left his toes.

That's about when everything went to hell.

Mitch's gaze was locked on the couch, all the way down the stairs, so he didn't notice when his back foot slid slightly. He _did_ notice when his front foot began to slide as well, and reached out a hand to grab the railing. For some reason, however, the cold metal of the rail never touched his fingertips. This sudden knowledge made Mitch's thoughts go from calm to panicked within the span of a split-second. He sensed his body slipping, and tried to lunge for the rail, but it was too late.

One moment Mitch was at the top of the stairs and in moment number two he was falling down the stairs. Trying to maintain some sort of control, he twisted his body so that he could claw at the steps and regain balance. The motion caused his head to snap back further than it had been originally.

A sickening _CRACK!_ sound echoed in the following instance. The countertenor felt a horrible pain in his head at the same time stars and colorful spots covered his line of sight. Then he couldn't feel his head. Or his hands, or his feet, or his legs, or his arms. Everything was going white. Fuzzy. Out of focus.

Since his body was now slack, Mitch's head connected to the hard stairs once more, in the same area as it previously had. The singer couldn't comprehend the pain, though, the white fuzzy darkness was dragging him down down down and soon he couldn't see or feel anything anymore.

And Mitch Grassi passed out.

* * *

Something next to him was beeping.

It wasn't a comforting beep, if such a thing in the world existed. The sound it made was shrill, high-pitched, constant and insistent, as if its sole job was to notify everybody around it that yup it was still beeping, carry on with your life, I'll just be here _beep beep beep_ _beeping_ until somebody tells me to stop.

He really wanted to tell the beeping to stop.

Seriously. It was starting to make his ears hurt.

He also really wanted to open his eyes. But for some reason, he couldn't. His eyelids wouldn't let him. They felt sticky, like tape, so maybe they had become so sticky that they were stuck shut. In time he'd open them. Just not yet. If tape was ripped from its surface, sometimes it took some of its surface with it, and he honestly didn't want to tear off his eyelashes or something equally drastic by opening his eyes.

So that would have to wait.

Then he switched from wondering whether or not he could open his eyes to whether or not he could move.

Immediately he knew that moving was impossible. Completely and utterly impossible. Because he couldn't feel a single thing. All of his body was numb (or tight), from his toes to knees to torso to shoulders to neck to...

 _Ow._

His head wasn't numb. At least, not all of it was; there was a small point on the very back that burned a little. Ow ow ow. That didn't feel good. If he could get up and move or at the bare minimum open his eyes he would run to the nearest ocean and dump his head in it. Maybe the burn would go away.

He didn't know when he had woken, but he could see sleep beckoning to him from behind his eyes, and exhaustion climbing up his unfeeling skin to settle over him like a cocoon. As soon as the tiredness began weighing him down, the beeping slowed a bit.

Good. It was hurting his ears.

Black clouded him. He tried to clutch at the edges of consciousness, the tiniest bit of curiosity whispering in its quietest voice the simplest question on earth. He could do nothing to address it, though, or answer it in any way. Far too much effort. As he fell into sleep, the sound of the beeping abruptly stopped.

* * *

It was rather difficult to say what exactly time was. Or what it meant to him. He knew that it moved, whatever it was, and as it moved things changed.

For instance, as more time moved in whichever way that it did, he felt new things.

The first thing he felt, actually _felt_ , not heard inside of his head, was a sense of cold. It was cold on his face, and it was cold in the space between his fingertips and his elbows, wherever they were. But he still felt it. And when he noticed this at some point in time, a burst of excitement didn't follow. He simply found out he could do so one day. That was it.

Soon after he felt cold, he felt his body coming back to him. His body went the opposite of numb; in chunks, it woke up and restarted and he got them back. Even sooner, he was able to distinguish what part of his body was where, and if it was cold or not. And _then_ , sooner still, he was able to feel air whistling through his nose, dance past his larynx, skid by his trachea, before finally filling his lungs. The air, he realized later, had a smell as well as a feel. It smelled sharp, though, so he didn't like to smell it if he could get away with it.

That damned beeping still kept on. As time went by, he grew interested at how it always beeped whenever he smelled the air, or how it beeped slightly differently just before he went dark. It still kept on so long as he kept on. How interesting.

Less and less time passed as a new discovery was made. Sometimes he discovered several things at once. By the end of a time that he had the vague inclination was rather long, he could smell and knew the scent of everything in the room (stale and plain), he could taste and wondered what it would be like to actually put food in his mouth (yes, he recalled what food was after a while), he could hear and as this asset improved he was more easily able to tune out the beeping, and he could feel. He could feel so much more than he could before. Cold, for sure, and hot (only once had he felt this. It was a shocking contrast to cold he wasn't sure he favored or not) and other things besides what he identified as temperature, like the fabric that his body was wrapped in, or the hair that hung next to his eye that itched like crazy.

His eyes. He still couldn't open them. They were still stuck shut. This bothered him a lot. He wanted to open them, he wanted to _see_ , but every time he tried a weight so heavy he couldn't describe it shoved the energy and effort it took to do so and he had no choice other than to succumb to it. All he saw was the color of behind his eyes, and it was pure black.

However, he remembered. He remembered what to call the fabric that he was tied up in, that was a _sheet_. And that sharp smell was _bleach_. And the thing his sometimes aching, sometimes not aching head rested against was called a _pillow_. He could attach the words inside of his head to things, too, he'd figured out how swiftly; the weight that consumed him was _sleep_ , or _tiredness_ , and the slight rush that swirled in him when he remembered or discovered something fresh was _pride_.

This continued, him just existing and time just going by, for he honestly didn't know how long. Nothing seemed to change, and if they did, it went on while he was asleep. He couldn't tell. Sometimes he wanted to be awake and feeling whenever something might change. Sometimes he worried it might be too much for him. Sometimes he wished to pick his body up from what he'd recalled as a _bed_ (it wasn't that comfortable, he could admit that now) and open his eyes, and see change.

It didn't happen for some length of time.

He got lonely. He ached for people, or company, or somebody who cared. Because after some length of time passed, he became aware, more than just awake, remembered more nouns and adjectives and verbs and things. He remembered a thing called _people_. He wished for them, whoever they were.

Maybe they could dull the pain in his head that was more prominent as more time passed.

And then, while he wished badly for people, lying alone in his bed with his face and arms cold..something _changed_.

While he was awake and his eyes still closed, a door opened. Somebody had opened a door. Then they closed the door. It must be people. It _must_ be. People walked and talked and stood up and _saw_ but more than anything people _opened doors_ and that was what had _just happened_.

That somebody who was part of people took in a deep, shuddering breath. He heard them do it.

Nothing happened for a moment. That moment ended when that somebody scraped something against the floor (a chair, most likely) and very suddenly that somebody was close. He could feel them. He could feel how close their body was.

Somebody, slowly and gently, held his hand.

The hand was warm. It wasn't anything like the extreme hot and cold he had felt before. It was warm and it was holding his and it felt so right. Holding this somebody's hand felt so _right_. Their hands fit together perfectly, even though his was a lot smaller than the somebody's, their hands fit together like...what was the word...what were they called... _puzzle pieces._

A feeling he knew but had never felt before entered his body. He scrambled around trying to find a word for it.

Safe. He felt safe.

"Hi, Mitch."

Like time couldn't get any better, not only did the somebody hold his hand, but they _talked_ , too! Oh, and their voice was so _nice_. Not too deep, but enough that it carried an undertone of a rumbling hum. He desperately wished that they would talk again, that the somebody would speak, so he could hear their voice again. It was like chocolate to his ears, if that made any sense.

"It's..." They paused and took in another breath. But though they seemed to be trying to prevent it, their next words broke. "It's Scott."

The name rang a faint bell. Unfortunately, that bell resided in the back of his mind, right where the burning pain was, and hearing and vaguely recognizing it hurt. It didn't stop him from wanting to hear it again, however.

And who was Mitch?

"The doctors haven't let anybody visit you for the past few days. They said you needed time to adjust. And they didn't let me in your actual room until now." The pretty voice that belonged to Scott caught and he laughed weakly. "Your parents are so nice to me. They let me visit you first because...because I'm selfish."

His parents? Doctors? Days? He had parents and doctors watching over him and days had passed? How many? Why?

"I'm sorry it took me so long to see you." A warm finger brushed the hair from his closed eye, and the itch went away. The finger was soft and it must've belonged to Scott's voice. "But I'm here now. I'm here now and I'm not leaving, ever, okay, Mitchie? You take all the time you need to get better. I'll be right here."

This was making absolutely no sense at all. Scott's voice was nice, but the words it said were confusing. He didn't understand more than half of them or what they meant. Some small part of him wanted to ask, however, a larger part of him just wanted to lie here and listen and possibly go back to sleep. Listening for this long was a lot of work. How did people listen for so long?

Wetness touched his hand, along with more warmth. This was so _new_. Scott's voice brought so much newness. So much change. The wetness trailed through his thin, small fingers, sliding past his wrist and suddenly it disappeared. It was most likely on the bed now. He didn't have to worry about it since more and more wetness touched his hand, and then a few drops on his arm, and the _warmth_ , the warmth of somebody's lips were pressing against his palm, and all at once he knew it was the new tone.

"The doctors want to pull the plug in less than two weeks." Scott's pretty nice chocolate voice was breaking again. What had happened to make it shatter so horribly? "Your parents aren't going to let them, though. The band isn't going to let them. You're still in there, Mitch, I know you are. You just have to hang on. Please hang on. _Please_."

Too much. Now he knew why despite wishing for change, he'd feared it would be too much. Too much too fast and he didn't understand. Question marks swirled in his brain, right in the back, inside of the part that burned. And it hurt. Listening hurt. So that was why people couldn't listen for so long, it was because it hurt and none of the words made sense anyway.

"Please come back, Mitch..."

Ah, there it was. The tiredness pulling over him. For once, he agreed with sleep; it was time to go dark right now, the pain of listening almost wasn't worth it. But he really liked Scott's voice, even if it was cracked, and he wanted to hear it again. Maybe...maybe Scott's voice would come back. And his warmth too.

The beeping began to slow, ever so slightly. Time to go dark.

...and who was Mitch?


	2. Try

**Yay, super quick longish update! The only reason this update came so fast was because I already had this part written (despite wishing to, I can't write 10,000 words in one day. Darn), so I figured I'd just post it while I had it. Please don't get used to it, though, the next update really won't be for another week! This one is special cuz it's already done! :)**

 **BUT...enough of my babbling. I'm really happy with the way this chapter turned out, blank and emotionless but with a little dash of Mitch's original persona. His character is slightly difficult to tackle, as he's usually sassy and confident, and while his memory is gone, he's a lot more detached. I tried the best I could to nail his queenliness down, so we'll see how it went.**

 **Oh, and a huge thank you to Hawk03, who not only reviewed the first chapter of this story but also recommended _Scomiche Oneshots_ on their profile! Like what kind of awesome human being does that? Seriously, thank you so much, that means a lot to me :)**

 **Thank you for your reviews, favorites, and follows! Read away!**

* * *

Things started to change very quickly after Scott's voice visited him.

To begin with, the room he lied on his bed in got less cold. That was definitely a much-needed improvement. However, the reason behind the room getting less cold was the fact that people began to enter it. People were warm and saw and opened doors, but the thing that really shocked him was that they _spoke_. And not only to each other, but to _him_ , too!

It was rare that more than one voice talked to him at once. A voice that was way deep, as deep as the ocean he wanted to dump his head into, deeper than the deepest bedrock ever found, explained that the doctors (he still didn't know what they were, why they were watching him, or what they meant by 'pulling the plug') almost never let more than one person visit him at the same time. He was partly okay with this, because the voices were so new and brought so much change and didn't seem to notice how quickly they did so and hey, it was hard to keep up. But another part of him was not so okay with this, because he liked the voices and their warmth and that they kept him company. It was nice.

Even though certain voices made his head hurt more than others, it was still nice.

There was one voice that was high, tinkling, and smooth, and it sounded like it might belong to a girl. It always chatted to him about her day; what make up she had bought, how her pets called _dogs_ were doing, and how her singing was developing. Every single time it talked to him, her girlish voice introduced itself as Kirstie. He liked the name and he liked her voice. But sometimes he couldn't help but forget it. Her name made his head hurt quite a bit.

The deep ocean voice who explained things a lot almost always came with somebody. That somebody more often than not sounded like drums. Or whirring. Or mimicked the beeping, which they did quiet well. He really liked listening to them both talk and occasionally hum to him. They were Avi and Kevin. He mixed up which name belonged to which voice a lot.

Another pair of voices that visited him called themselves 'Mom' and 'Dad'. His parents. They always referred to him as Mitch, or Mitchell.

Actually, when he really thought about it, _all_ of the voices called him Mitch. It was a little weird at first, but he got used to it. Scott's voice mixed him up a little, because his chocolate tone wouldn't just call him Mitch like everybody else, but Mitchie or honey or sweetheart. He liked whenever Scott's voice called him sweetheart. It made his bones tingle faintly.

His voice hurt the most. By far. Scott's voice made the core of the pain in his brain throb terribly sometimes, and oh god, did he want it to stop. And yet, at the same time, Scott's voice made him feel the lightest, and the kind of tired that didn't make him feel like he was being dragged into sleep. There was not a long length of time that passed before his voice would come back. His pretty voice visited thrice as often as the others.

He seldom forgot the name attached to the first voice that had visited him. He made sure not to. It would be sin.

He wondered if the voices visited him while he slept. Probably. They had no way of telling whether he was awake or not.

As the days (finally, he had some way of measuring time!) went forward, the voices got more and more nervous, and the more and more they mentioned 'pulling the plug'. Whatever that meant, it made the voices anxious and wobbly, and they would stop talking and hold his hand and then the wetness would arrive. They never asked anything of him. They never asked him about pulling the plug.

Until now.

"Good morning, beautiful." Scott's voice was back again. A silent, almost invisible _yay_ travelled through his nerves. And he had called him... _beautiful?_ What did _that_ word mean? Hopefully nothing bad, but Scott's voice hadn't called him anything that sounded bad before, so why would he start now? "How are you doing? The ladies at Starbucks miss you. You know Layla, the girl who always takes our orders right away, and she has the nose piercing? She keeps on getting me two coffees because I always go there with you. _Double coffee_. I don't think my nerves can handle it, though, so she gets me one now. On the house, too. She's really nice to me."

Scott paused his voice to make a yawning sound. After he was done, he held his hand and used his thumb to rub circles onto his knuckles. It felt nice. He wanted to open his eyes and see what Scott's voice looked like. His eyes were still too sticky.

Damn.

The one-sided conversation continued, the voice that belonged to Scott talking easily and only breaking a little every now and then, while he just listened contently. There came a point later when suddenly the pretty voice stopped and didn't say anything for a while.

"I know it has to be hard for you." Scott said. Oh, no. His voice was shaking something violent. "B-But I need you to try and come back, Mitch. They're going to pull the p-p-plug in three days and we can't stop them. Unless you move, or you b-blink, honey, they're going to pull the plug."

It came to him that pulling the plug wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"I need you to try. Okay? Can you do that? Try and move or blink?" Warmth brushed his cheek. Scott. The warmth was always Scott. "It's difficult, I know, but you have to try. I can't..." Here his pretty voice stopped and there was a sniffling sound. There the wetness was. "I _can't_ let you go. I'm not ready. _Please_ stay here with me, Mitch."

A familiar indifference lurked in his mind, with a slight bit of longing thrown in for good measure. It was what he always felt whenever Scott's voice pleaded with him; he wanted to appease the voice, make it so that it didn't sound like it hurt anymore, but some sort of weight held him back. He wasn't willing to push it off. Pushing the weight hurt and it was tiring and it took effort that he simply didn't have.

Or did he?

"Please try." Now Scott's voice was small, tiny, still pretty but attempting to hide its prettiness behind a mask. "I know that you can at least try. You're strong. You're strong and sassy and the best singer I know. Better than Beyoncé." Scott laughed quietly, but it carried a weird hollowness to it. His hand was held a little tighter. "You can get through this, Mitchie."

There came a noise from the door (that he had worked out was twenty or less feet away from his bed). Knocking. Somebody wanted to join.

"Hey, Scott." It was the high girly voice. She sounded strained. What was her name...oh right! Kirstie! "The doc says you have to leave now. They're running their last brain scan."

"Okay." There was quiet. Then lips pressed themselves to his forehead, followed by a whispered, "I love you, Mitch. I'll be back soon."

The two people left. Nobody was in the room with the exception of him.

It was then that he decided that he wanted to try.

He was going to try for Scott's voice.

Okay. So. How did he go about doing that?

Three days. That's how much time he had to figure this out. Three days...which was...uh...seventy two hours! That's right! One day was twenty four hours, and that times three was seventy two! Okay, okay, this was good, he was discovering things again. The beeping sped up a little. Excitement was starting to course through him. This was really good. What else could he find out before he started to try?

 _Mitch_...god, but that name sounded as familiar as the name Scott. What did it mean? He'd always cast the term to the side absentmindedly, thinking he'd ponder over it later, but now...he had to decode it. What did it-

Bright hot pain shot through his skull. He would've winced if he could, and instead screamed very loudly inside of his head. Because he _knew_. He _remembered_. He wasn't just _him_ , he had a name too, just like the voices.

 _My name is Mitch!_ The words floated in the front of his brain. Boldly and plain in sight and they stayed there like they were solid fact. That was his name. Even better: _My name is Mitchell Coby Michael Grassi, but the voices call me Mitch!_

This was so amazing! His best discovery yet by a long shot. Would the voices be proud of him? Probably. Mom had said that she was proud of him for still breathing, and breathing was only a little difficult, so maybe they'd be proud of him for something that was a lot difficult. Like remembering his name.

He remembered his own fucking name!

And he did it all by himself!

 _Fuck yes!_

Mitch heard the beeping increase in pace as his excitement grew and grew. Although, if his name was Mitch, then why did Scott's voice call him Mitchie and honey and sweetheart and beautiful? Were those words even good? They sounded nice...they were most likely good. Mitch would have to ask Scott's voice about that.

Oh wait, he'd been so excited that he remembered his name that he forgot what he was doing. He was trying. Right. He was trying for the pretty voice that belonged to the name Scott. What was he going to try and do?

 _I'm going to work up the effort to squeeze his hand._ More concrete thought held solid ground in Mitch's mind. The word _I_ was becoming prominent in his brain now, instead of really detached third person narration. He wasn't ready to escape that particular cage just yet, but Mitch was getting there. _I am going to squeeze the hand of the prettiest voice._

And so, Mitch learned to use what he knew was limited time as wisely as he could. He had no idea what 'pulling the plug' meant, though he was under the impression it wasn't good, and he only had seventy two hours to prevent it from happening. He could work with that. He could.

Working made Mitch feel slightly bad sometimes, because he had to store up his energy as best as he could, and to do so and build his stamina he had to ignore the voices most of the time.

He had the notion that they wouldn't mind so much after he showed them what he could do.

Hell, after practicing for a bit, the fingers on his right hand could twitch. It was hard, but he could do it. Nobody was ever there to see it happen. Mitch cherished the quiet...victory? Was that the right term?

Finally, Mitch's seventy two hours were almost up. He could tell that they were; there was a lot of buzzing outside of his door, lots of voices, some he recognized and most he didn't. The voices were angry and sad and sometimes yelling. After a few moments they quieted down and the door opened up.

Somebody scraped the chair against the floor and took the spot beside Mitch. They held his hand. Judging by the size and how warm it was, it was the hand that belonged to the pretty nice chocolate voice that called itself Scott.

Perfect.

"Hi, honey. Your beeper's been acting all weird today." Another hand that belonged to the voice of Scott smoothed Mitch's hair from his face gently. "You'd tell it to shut up if you could. It's probably really annoying."

Truer words had never been spoken.

"I really hope you've been trying, Mitchie. That you've been trying for your parents or for the band." _No,_ Mitch wanted to say, _I've been trying for you. I've been trying for your voice._ "I can only stay a few minutes today...because everybody else w-wants to see you...o-o-one l-last time and I've b-been..." The pretty voice was choking. Like the words it spoke would kill it after exiting its throat. "I've b-b-been h-hoarding you. God, I'm s-such a b-bad person."

Mitch started to mentally, physically, and emotionally gather his strength. This would take a bit to build.

Scott's voice shook, and the hand that belonged to him was clutching Mitch's own very tightly. Good. That would mean the pretty voice would feel it when he clutched it back. "I w-wish I hadn't left you alone in the house th-that day a few weeks ago. I should've stayed h-home w-w-with y-you. I should've. And now you're going to...now you're going to...t-to... _please don't leave me_...please, Mitch, I won't _make it_ if you..."

 _Give me one more moment and I will do this._ Mitch grabbed his concentration and did not let it go. He didn't allow it to slip, slither, or slide. No. Not this time. He was going to try for the voice. And if he didn't do it, if he couldn't do it, and the plug was pulled, then he would take the consequences knowing he had given everything.

"Don't go...please stay...I-I'm selfish when it comes t-t-to you...please stay here..."

Here it goes. He was going to do it.

" _Please_..."

Summoning every single morsel of energy in his entire body, Mitch focused all of his strength on his left hand.

And he squeezed.

Scott's voice faltered. His hand froze within Mitch's grasp, unmoving, but warm and there. The entire room stood still long enough for Mitch to wonder if he had done something wrong.

"Mitch, honey, are you there?" The voice had new energy to it, new life, and the hand that belonged to Scott's voice finally squeezed back. The voice turned breathless and airy and even prettier, if that was possible. "Oh my god, Mitch? Oh...my..." It caught itself. "C-Can you...can you squeeze my hand again?"

That one single time had taken much effort from him. But now he was on a roll. Even though his head had begun to hurt like crazy, Mitch refused to let go of his concentration, downright _refused_ , and squeezed the hand of the voice again.

"Oh my god, Mitch, oh my god..." Scott's voice sounded like it was being ripped from him. It gasped and sobbed and sounded like it was in pain. Uh oh. Had squeezing his hand been a mistake? "You're there, _you're really there_ , you're okay, oh my god, _Mitch,_ you're right here and-" The voice paused before calling, "KIRSTIE!"

Mitch heard the door banging open and several pairs of feet barging in. That was strange.

"What, Scott? Jesus, you sounded like you were being murdered-" That was the high girly voice.

"He squeezed my hand."

"Scott, you can't get your hopes up-"

"Kirstie, he squeezed my hand. And then I asked him if he could do it again, and _he did_."

"He... _he what?_ " Her tone asked.

An unfamiliar tone that was neutral broke in. "You mean to tell me, Mr. Hoying, that Mr. Grassi is responsive?"

"Yes!" The word was almost a sob. "He is, he's in there, he squeezed my hand!"

There was a lot of shuffling and the noise of people moving around, and then the hand of the voice that belonged to Scott went away abruptly. It was replaced by a hand closer to the size of Mitch's own, cool in temperature, nails slightly sharp. That same neutral tone that seemed feminine asked him slowly, "Mr. Grassi, can you squeeze my hand?"

Mitch surprised himself by finding he was able to. As long as he held onto his concentration, he could do it. So he repeated the action.

Several gasps sucked some of the air from the room.

"Mr. Grassi, I need to communicate with you in the only way we can, okay?" The neutral tone had gained a bit of vigor. "One squeeze is yes, two squeezes is no." Her feminine voice said carefully, "Are you in pain?"

Okay, if her voice wanted him to answer questions with yes or no, then she had to ask yes or no questions. His head was killing him, but his body felt okay. How the hell was Mitch supposed to convey that? He settled for not doing anything. Because really. Come on.

"You're asking something that's not yes or no." Scott's pretty voice spoke up from a few feet away. Whoa. That was weird. Could he read Mitch's mind?

"You're right, Mr. Hoying. Mr. Grassi, does your head hurt?"

One squeeze.

"Nurse Roberta, could you get some fresh bandages, and a few milligrams of mild head trauma medication?" More shuffling commenced. Was that the sound of crying he heard? "Can you hear me properly?"

One squeeze. The more Mitch did it, the easier it became.

"Last question for now, Mr. Grassi, last question; do you know who or where you are?"

That was also a mixed question. He truly didn't know. All Mitch knew about himself was his name, and all he knew about where he was located was the fact that it smelled sharp and stale and he was on a bed in a room with an awful contraption next to him that never stopped beeping. But to put it simply...

Two squeezes. He really, really didn't.

"That's quite alright, Mr. Grassi, that's to be expected. You don't have to know right now." The voice beside him assured. It wasn't as pretty as Scott's voice. None of the voices were. And their hands never made him feel as safe, either. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. I know that this is a very exciting and happy thing, but Mr. Grassi has just confirmed that he is in no mindset to process the amount of data your presence brings. And his head is in pain. That must be dealt with right away."

"How long will that take? How long until we get to see him?" Deep-as-the-ocean voice asked quietly.

"We can't be sure just yet. A few weeks at best. The doctors will come in, check on him often, and run a tests. At this rate, after patients gain minor motor control, their control over their body greatly increases within a short span of time. In a few hours, he might open his eyes." There was another collective gasp, and a few more sobs. "That's only if he's lucky and able, folks. Moving is tiring. He's going to be highly confused. We'll have to test his memory and cognitive skills. It's going to take time." Here her voice hesitated. The voice lightly squeezed his hand back. "But it's a start."

* * *

Mitch's head felt a lot better. Whether or not that was because he didn't hear the voices talking to him and their tones and names didn't constantly ring bells inside of the part of his mind that hurt, or because somebody had given him pain medication, he wasn't sure. It was probably a mix of both.

Oh, and someone had gotten rid of that damn beeping machine. Thank god. Its shrill beeps no longer rang through Mitch's ears anymore, and had been replaced by a quieter beep that didn't get underneath his skin.

Many more people cluttered around his bed these hours. They rarely spoke, and if they did, it was seldom to him and mostly to each other on the occasion they brought another voice with them. One of the voices, that same feminine serious tone, held his hand and explained part of what was going on; that his name was Mitchell Grassi (which he'd already figured out), and that he'd taken a nasty fall down the stairs, and now he was in the hospital. It took him a while, but he remembered what a hospital was. He had no idea he'd fallen.

He slept less and was aware more. It was a change that wasn't all good and wasn't all bad.

Mitch missed the pretty nice chocolate voice that belonged to Scott, whomever he was. Sometimes he spent hours pondering over what the person the voice belonged to might look like; were they short and thin, tall and thick, did they have green eyes or brown ones, what did their smile look like, how was one to describe the way they held themselves or they way they stood, was their appearance as pretty as their voice, and more than anything he wondered what the pretty voice sounded like when it sung. What Scott's pretty voice sounded like when he was singing.

That content fueled many of his daydreams.

However, what also consumed many of Mitch's thoughts was the curiosity of sight. He still had yet to open his eyes, and ever since his hand had first squeezed, he found his eyes becoming less and less sticky. Should he try? What could it hurt?

The serious feminine voice was holding his hand, saying nothing save that she was just going to check his vitals (what were those?), when Mitch squeezed her hand particularly tightly and did not let go for a solid ten seconds. It was the only way he could get her attention.

"Mr. Grassi? Are you alright?"

 _I'm more than alright_. Mitch had grown used to his thoughts being distinct and unmovable unless he ordered them away. He liked the power he was slowly learning to command over his mind. The pain in his head fought him a lot, and sometimes it won, but Mitch was winning a few battles as well. _I am going to open my eyes and hopefully it won't kill me._

So he did what he had done he-had-no-idea-how-long-ago (Mitch assumed only a couple days had passed since he'd first squeezed the hand of the prettiest voice); he gathered his energy, carefully peeled the tape from his eyelids, and opened his eyes.

Okay, ow, BRIGHT-ASS LIGHT! OW OW _OW!_

THIS WAS IMMENSLY PAINFUL.

Mitch wanted to close his eyes as soon as he had opened them. His eyes painfully retracted at the sudden brightness, a blinding white crispness he wasn't used to, but after he blinked many times his eyeballs ached less and things came into focus. Wow. Blinking felt nice.

"Mr. Grassi, can you tilt your head to the side so you can see me?"

Oh, god, he'd already opened his eyes, now he had to _move_ , too?

Mitch turned his head slower than a sloth would've, to look at the space next to him. He was going to see who the feminine voice belonged to! For the first time ever, he was going to see what people looked like when you paired their voice with their appearance!

The serious voice and the cool hand belonged to a middle-aged-looking woman. Her hair was light brown and pulled up into a bun, and her almond-shaped, light brown eyes were gazing back at him steadily, her thin mouth caught between pursing or curling. She wore a long white coat that had a pocket in it filled with pens and pencils, and attached to said pocket was a tiny picture of her and her name. She seemed a little blurry around her edges.

He stared at the words for a moment in an attempt to decipher them. He read them over and over. They didn't register in his head. They were just _there_. Which meant Mitch wouldn't know her name unless she told him.

He didn't have to worry.

"Hello, Mr. Grassi." Her mouth lifted in a small smile. She lifted her other hand so that it was clasped on top of their joined ones. "My name is Dr. Rosin. I'm your temporary doctor." She nodded slightly at him. "You're doing really well so far. Do you know if you can speak?"

Mitch simply looked at her. Speak? As in, open his mouth and use the vocal chords he could feel there, vocal chords that hadn't vibrated in so long they resembled dusty reeds? She wanted him to use those?

Two squeezes. He wasn't sure yet.

"That's fine." Dr. Rosin nodded again. "It's very good that you're responding, and it's good that you opened your eyes, too. Can you move your head more?"

For the next hour or two, Mitch worked with Dr. Rosin on rolling his neck, popping certain stiff areas (doing so made him start a little but cracking those spots made him feel a lot better), and blinking. It was tiring exercise. However, by the end of it, Mitch was able to move his head any way he wanted, which was quite useful for seeing things, and it no longer hurt to use his eyes to look around. Occasionally his arms sizzled, control of the nerves there sparking, and he had the vague notion that soon he'd be able to move his arms as well as his head.

That was actually kind of exciting.

Dr. Rosin was pleased. "You're doing a lot better than most patients do at this point, Mr. Grassi, especially with the amount of trauma your brain went through during the aftermath of your fall. Does it pain you to move your head or blink?"

Two squeezes.

"Excellent."

Mitch didn't know what that word meant, but he found that the people like Dr. Rosin, with their long white coats filled to the brim with pens and pencils, told him that a lot over the course of the following days. Because instead of the usual laying down in bed all day, holding the hands of voices, unmoving and unresponsive, now Mitch's days had flipped dramatically.

Now, whenever he woke up from sleep that was a lot less forced than it used to be, his quieter beeper would flash a little purple light and soon a doctor (he figured out that they were the ones who worked in hospitals) would enter the room. Most of the time it was Dr. Rosin. They would grasp his left hand if they needed to ask a question (their touch was never as gentle or welcoming as the touch of the voices before them. Speaking of which...he missed them) and ask clipped yes or no inquires that if he didn't respond fast enough to, they asked again. Mitch preferred the nurses over the doctors, especially Nurse Roberta, because at one random point of the day she would sit down and talk with him. Or rather _to_ him.

Mitch was working on overcoming the next major obstacle that stood in his way; speech.

He was working on other things, too. Because when the doctors or Dr. Rosin came to see him in the morning, they made him work. Work on moving his head, and then his neck, and then lifting his aching head off of his pillow in order to change the bandages on it (no wonder his brain always felt so tight). Once he had conquered moving his head, he learned to tilt his shoulders, and he was soon able to lift his arms as well as his torso. It took a lot of time, effort, and pain, but he could do all of it.

In his spare time (Mitch had wads of it. Not as much as before, but still wads), he took it onto himself to memorize the room he was in. It wasn't as hard as he thought it was going to be, as he'd already predicted where the door was and where his bed was in relation to the door, and soon he could describe the entire space in detail; white tile on the floor that was only slightly scuffed, a table beside his bed, a wooden chair that looked very uncomfortable that somebody or other always yanked into a spot next to him (and yet somehow managed to wind up ten feet away), his bed in the middle of the room against the wall, a couple cabinets, and of course the medical equipment that was cluttered to his left and right sides. Mitch was vaguely proud of himself for being able to memorize his room. It was a good brain exercise.

Mitch's spare time wasn't just used up memorizing. The doctors frequently took advantage of the fact that he could do nothing but lie around all day and had taken to playing a few brain games with him. These things he came to know as 'flash cards' were shoved in his face a lot, and he rarely learned anything from them. He tended to shut his eyes or look away whenever a doctor would bring them out. They were boring and he didn't absorb a single thing from them. The words beneath the pictures made no sense. Eventually the doctors stopped with the flash cards, but swore that he'd have to look at them again soon enough.

In the parts of the day where Mitch wasn't resting, or doing grueling...what did Dr. Rosin call it... _physical therapy_ , or being chatted to by kind Nurse Roberta, he thought of the voices.

Specifically the pretty one that sounded like chocolate, with its semi-deep hum and smooth undertone. He missed it and the others. They had talked to him without knowing he was there. Mitch had the inclination that the voices knew him somehow, even though he had no idea who they were, and couldn't squash the curiosity of finding out. They didn't visit him though. He had the feeling the doctors kept them out.

This frustrated him greatly.

Dr. Rosin said that he was getting better. Mitch didn't understand what she meant by that (besides being told he had fallen, he didn't even know why he was in the hospital in the first damn place), because hearing the voices would make him better. He could _see_ who the voices belonged to now. That would make him super better.

God, he missed the voice that belonged to somebody with the name Scott.

"Okay, Mr. Grassi, let's try again."

Mitch ground his teeth together in irritation. On top of gaining mobility of his body back, emotions were starting to come back to him as well. The most he'd felt so far were annoyance, a dash of pride, thoughtfulness, curiosity, impatience, and indifference. He could name them all now. He briefly pondered over what it would be like to feel a huge burst of an emotion called _happy,_ or another feeling he'd heard Nurse Roberta explain, called _love._ They both sounded nice.

For about the fifteenth time, Mitch cleared his throat, opened his mouth...and nothing came out.

Dr. Rosin pursed her lips in dissatisfaction. She did that a lot. "I think we're going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to speak and project noise, maybe you should whisper instead. Something a little less intense. Try and do that."

Whispering. That actually sounded appealing. And possible.

Mitch cleared his throat once more. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and breathed in and out, letting it whistle through his lungs. Well, trying was at least worth a shot. Why not try? Trying had gotten him this far.

"Let's start with something easy. Your name. _Mitchell Grassi_." Dr. Rosin said the last part with emphasis.

"Mit...chell..." Mitch was so shocked that he almost stopped breathing. His eyes widened, but he continued. He'd gotten that far already. "Gra...ssssss...sssi."

"Good! Try again."

"Mitch...ell Grasssssi."

"Once more, Mr. Grassi."

"Mitchell Grassi." He whispered in his softest voice. The words were raw despite their gentleness, making his tongue curl and morph into a distinctly familiar position and then settling. But they felt _good_. "Mitchell Grassi."

Mitch's throat closed up as wetness greeted his own eyes. Something new. He sniffled, interested, and allowed the tears to spill over and land on his hospital shirt. That's what they were called. _Tears_. He was crying tears of wetness, just like the voices had. He was crying because it was hitting him that he had a voice. He had a voice.

He had a voice.

And he could _use it_.

"Well done, Mr. Grassi." Dr. Rosin was smiling. "Well done. I know that was hard for you." She paused, plucking a pen from her pocket and fiddling with it. She did that a lot too. "I know that's difficult for you to do, but you're going to have to practice." She watched as more tears plunked onto his gown. "At least practice whispering, okay? We'll do less physical therapy now and focus on your voice."

His voice.

 _He had a voice._

That night, while most of the other patients slept, and while _he_ usually would be sleeping, Mitch practiced his voice. He skidded his eyes over every object in the room and quietly repeated what their name was to himself. Over and over. He dug deep past the burn in the back of his mind that he knew resided beneath his tight head bandage to remember words for objects he didn't know.

That night, he whispered the entire night. Mitch cried more that night as well.

Because after all this time, only now had he discovered that he had a voice too.

* * *

"Need help." Mitch whispered. He held a slightly shaky hand out to Dr. Rosin, who grasped his entire arm instead. He knew that she meant well yet couldn't resist the slight rolling motion of his eyes. He just needed somebody to hold his hand. Then he would be alright.

Carefully, the middle-aged temporary doctor assisted him as he eased out of bed, stood on his own two feet, and wobbled. Mitch bit his lip as he focused. In the following second, his equilibrium had been regained, and his spine straightened decisively. His hospital shirt billowed at his hips, inviting cold air to rush up his stomach. Mitch shivered and wrapped an arm around himself. He'd never get used to how freezing it was in the room. Even with the doctors coming and going as frequently as they did, the temperature fluctuated and seldom remained semi-warm.

"You're sure you're going to go on your own, Mr. Grassi?" She asked, her voice serious as ever.

Mitch nodded. It had been about two weeks since he'd quietly spoken his name, one and a half since he'd decided that he wanted to get up and go to the bathroom by himself, seven days since he'd gotten up for the first time, and four weeks since he had last heard the pretty voice. _Way too long_. He was determined to fix that. If he could walk, then maybe the doctors would let him see the voices.

Taking a single step forward was hard. Taking multiple steps forward was even harder. But he was going to try.

So Mitch breathed deeply to center himself, let go of Dr. Rosin's hand, and moved his left foot forward.

No problem.

He moved his right foot forward.

Nothing but okay-ness so far. Walking by himself would take time to master. He knew that. He'd given it a week, and now the excruciating pain was paying off.

Several minutes went by until Mitch's hand slapped firmly against the doorframe of the bathroom. Tilting his head, he gave the owner of the feminine serious voice the tiniest of smiles and a thumbs-up. She gestured for him to go in. He did so, stepping inside of the bathroom five feet away from his bed (all by himself!) and closing the door behind him.

Immediately Mitch leaned against the door for support, sucking in air and feeling his head spin dizzily. Maybe that wasn't as effortless as he'd made it seem. His head gave a mild throb and he reached a hand up to clutch at it. The bandages had been removed a few days ago, so there was no longer a weird tightness constricting his head, yet another improvement in a short space of time. Instead of feeling the bulky cloth of bandages, his fingers came in contact with several small cold lines. He had been informed that these things were called _staples._

He winced. While he was massaging the spot on the back of his head that was hurting like crazy, Mitch's eyes lifted.

An unfamiliar stranger gazed back at him.

Mitch started at the sight, his heart jumping a bit as he moved his hand from his scalp to his chest to clutch where the organ was thumping speedily. Staring at him with eyes was wide as his own was a young man, so young he could've been in his early twenties, also grabbing at his chest and gasping air as quietly as possible.

They continued to stare at each other. Neither moved. That is, until Mitch took a hesitant step towards the young man.

The action was copied.

Another step forward. Copied yet again. Soon Mitch and the other man were as close as they could get due to the...the...oh, damnit...the _sink_ blocking their way. What was highly interesting was that the young man blinked whenever Mitch blinked, breathed whenever he breathed, moved whenever he moved. He lifted a finger and pointed it at the young man. He pointed right back.

Realization suddenly flooded Mitch. He was in a bathroom. Bathrooms had reflective glass. That reflective glass was called a...a mirror! Which meant the young man he was seeing in front of him was _him!_

Dark eyes so dark that they were almost black stared at Mitch. They were framed by two deep brown eyebrows, arched while carrying a few hairs that ruined what would've been a flawless curve, and surrounded by a barrage of thick lashes (good, he hadn't ripped anything off when he had opened his eyes). Purple dusted underneath the obsidian orbs, as prominent as the bags that hung underneath the pupils as well. Sharp cheekbones, slightly pointed chin, olive skin, and a bit of stubble around his colorlessly full mouth and jaw. Hair that matched his eyes was long enough that it covered one halfway, and the side of his head was shaved and growing in a little.

His frame was nothing particularly interesting (none of him looked particularly interesting), just as thin and razor-sharp as the rest of him. What captured Mitch's curiosity were the colorful designs that spiraled up and down his arms. Squinting, he saw that a bright yellow character resided on his left arm, and a bit of equally bright pink peeked from underneath his hospital shirt.

Mitch lifted the shirt sleeve to reveal a bubblegum pink starfish smiling cheerily. Surrounding it was a red crab, what appeared to be a squirrel dressed in a white suit and a helmet, a grumpy-looking blue squid wearing a hat, and a tiny one-eyed creature that was shaking its little nub of a hand in anger. Intrigued, he pushed his sleeves up until they stuck at his shoulders, and almost gasped. So many pictures covered his arms; a small cat, a bundle of cyan crystals, a black circle with a plane-like thing trapped inside, a...what was that plant called? Well, there was a plant followed by a few words he couldn't read, and some sort of bug. After a closer examination of his hands, Mitch found that he had a tiny skull on one finger and a paperclip around that area as well. One last cartoon figure was being bonked on the head with several colored circles. That was all.

He wondered if there were any more pictures on his body he had yet to know about. He hesitated, but lifted his shirt over his head. Mitch noted that there was another cartoonish character just above his heart. Every other inch of space on his body was blank.

When had all of this happened? Did the pictures come off?

He rubbed at them. They remained there.

 _I put art on my body._ Mitch examined the skull on his finger. _I decorated it with pictures. And I like them._

A smile that he hadn't expected perked his lips upward. So he wasn't as uninteresting as he thought he'd been. He was still unattractive, that much was obvious, but he had unique pictures on his body that he could at the very least take glee in.

The brunette slipped his shirt back over his head and cast his reflection a final glance. That was what he looked like. Brown hair, brown eyes, neutral skin, and a short stature. What did he expect, though, honestly? More than half the time people's voices fit their appearance. He barely had a voice; it sounded nearly silent and rather plain, so it was only fitting that his looks matched that description. Oh, well.

Mitch used the bathroom (after all, that's why he had entered the space in the first place), washed his hands, and opened the door. Dr. Rosin was talking with another doctor that owned greying hair and lines around his grave mouth. He tried his best not to shuffle and his best to instead walk towards the two, silently focused on not falling over. He'd tripped twice before and those times had not been fun.

Dr. Rosin and the other doctor stopped conversing the moment Mitch joined them. Her serious eyes flicked from him to the other doctor, before she finally said, "Mr. Grassi, this is Dr. Eaton. He's a neuroscientist."

"Okay." He whispered, settling his pupils (which he now knew were brown) on the new voice that he had yet to properly hear.

Dr. Eaton, he found out, had tone composed of pure grit. "Mr. Grassi, you've been making fairly well progress when it comes to physical recuperation." Here the new doctor paused. "Your mental progress isn't going as smoothly as we would've liked. You refuse to learn using the flash cards, fail at many of the psychoanalysis games my interns attempt to initiate you in, and your memory is rather worse for wear."

Mitch couldn't comprehend the words exiting Dr. Eaton's gritty expanse. They were making him uncomfortable, whatever they were. "O...kay?"

Dr. Rosin sighed through her nose. That meant she was going to simplify something for him. "Dr. Eaton is saying you're doing good with your body, but bad with your mind when it comes to getting better."

"Oh."

"We believe that at the rate you're going, which is to say, nowhere..." Dr. Eaton nodded at Mitch. "We're going to give your brain a push by allowing it to be exposed to something new, in the hope it may spark more memories in your mind and assist you in gaining knowledge."

Mitch stared at him blankly. _Um. What?_

"What Dr. Eaton is saying, Mr. Grassi, is that we think it might be good for you if you saw your friends again."

The brown-eyed man turned his blank stare on his temporary doctor. He had no friends. No visitors. The doctors kept them out. The only people that were remotely close to being his friends were the voices that seemed to know a lot about him even though he knew absolutely and utterly nothing about them. He hadn't heard their tones in weeks. Maybe they didn't exist, maybe they weren't here anymore, maybe after learning they wouldn't be able to hold his hand for a long time they had shrugged their shoulders and left for good. That made a lot more sense than the impossible alternative; that the doctors were going to let him see the voices for the first time, they were going to let him see and talk to and listen to the voices, and the voices (especially the prettiest one) would be there because they were waiting for him.

That wasn't what they were saying. Not really.

"Mr. Grassi? Are you alright?"

Dr. Rosin's words sounded like they were at the end of a long...a long... _tunnel_. That's it. They echoed and bounced and did cartwheels around the part of his head that was starting to throb painfully. They weren't actually going to let him see the voices, not the voices that he had listened to and that had brought him contentedness, they weren't going to let him see the pretty nice chocolate voice that had made him try to squeeze his hand, no they weren't, _no they weren't no they weren't no they weren't_ , because if they were, that would mean he would get to _see_ the motherfucking _voices_ and _talk to_ them and _holy fucking shit_.

Mitch swayed on his feet unsteadily. He saw Dr. Rosin reach for his arm as a white fuzz edged its way into his vision, the back of his head burning like crazy, tears racing down his cheeks. In the next second he was sitting on his uncomfortable bed, feeling as his own wetness began to cover his wrists. He breathed unevenly, shutting his eyes in a feeble attempt to cool the ache in his head. But it didn't go away.

"My head." The words barely made any sound.

"Dr. Eaton, if this is what you meant by _progress_ -"

"This is exactly what I mean. Recalling data a brain has lost is painful to a degree that neither you or I can understand. But recalling data, feeling that pain, that's good because it means his brain is remembering."

Rubbing his hands up and down his arms, the brunette repeated, "My head."

"Of course, Mr. Grassi. I'll page Nurse Roberta and get you some medication." Her serious voice gained what sounded like spikiness. "Dr. Eaton, perhaps he should wait two weeks more to see them, it's not like they're expecting to see him right away, we told them it might take weeks-"

"No." Mitch grasped her arm blindly. When he felt her firm bone beneath his fingertips, he lifted his head and glared at her with blurry eyes. He whispered fiercely, "Want to hear the voices. See them."

He had a chance. No way in hell was he going to let it go. They would have to throw him off a cliff before he let the doctors retract their word.

"He's ready, Dr. Rosin. He needs it. His brain needs the psychological push."

"My patient is _fragile_ , doctor. You can already see what merely mentioning his friends does to him. It's not safe and it's not smart. His brain might crack."

" _He needs the push_."

Mitch gripped Dr. Rosin's arm so tightly he could almost feel her blood gushing through her veins. She finally looked at him, an undecided expression flitting across her face momentarily. He echoed Dr. Eaton's words in his faintest tone. "I need the push."

That made her eye him with consideration. Dr. Rosin seemed to be examining the tears on his cheeks, the pained expression he wore, and the iron grip he had her arm in. After a moment of thinking, she let out, "Only if you agree to a deal, Mr. Grassi."

A deal? Just a deal? That was it? No other catch besides a deal? Mitch nodded as quickly as his throbbing head would allow. At that moment, with the prospect of seeing and hearing and talking to the voices so close, he would've agreed to anything. He'd even let them bring the annoying beeping machine back in his room if that was what it would take, and he hated that thing with a passion.

"Dr. Eaton says you refuse to learn. Is he correct?" The brown-eyed man nodded with less enthusiasm. "Then here is your deal; if you're allowed to see your friends again so soon, then you must get them to agree to help you learn. As in, using the flash cards-" Here Mitch couldn't help but twist his mouth into a displeased line. Ugh, those horrible blobs of color with the words underneath them he couldn't read? Oh, god. He hoped the voices would dislike those things as much as he did. "-and playing games with you to help your mind get better. They'll be a newer kind of therapy."

So not only was she shoving more new stuff down his throat, but she also wanted to use the voices as _therapy?_ What kind of crap deal was that?

"No using the voices." He muttered, his hold on her arm starting to tire him. He let Dr. Rosin go.

"We are not _using_ them, Mr. Grassi. We'll talk to them about helping you first, and they'll have to agree." She explained. Wait a minute. There was a chance that they wouldn't agree? As in...say they didn't want to talk to him anymore? _What?_ "Then you can not only get better by seeing them, but also get better because they'll help you to learn better. Socialization is a good kind of therapy. A kind of therapy you need."

Mitch didn't know what the word _socialization_ meant. He didn't bother asking, though, he wouldn't understand what it meant even if it was explained to him. Words like _socialization_ floated around his mind briefly before exiting, not tied to the ground and therefore were never seen again. Unless, of course, somebody repeated it, and then the entire confusing ordeal happened all over again. He had the feeling it wasn't normal to simply not comprehend every third word coming out of somebody's mouth, yet he had grown used to it. What could he do about it, really?

Back to the current topic that made his head hurt. The deal. When the brunette really thought about it, it wasn't too awful. And hell, if the voices didn't want to talk to him anymore after they saw him this once, then at least he'd get to hear them one more time.

He was going to hear the pretty nice chocolate voice one more time.

Maybe more times than just one. But that was only if he was...hmm...what was the word? Angry? No, no, that wasn't it. Happy? Ugh, no, that wasn't it either. It ended with the _ee_ sound, Mitch knew that much. L... _L...luck_...luck! Lucky! That was the word.

"Okay." Mitch cast his eyes towards his bed, longing to lay down. Learning what he looked like, finding out he was going to not only hear, but see and feel and talk to the voices (the prettiest voice. He was going to see what the prettiest voice looked like), and discovering the word _lucky_ had taken a lot from him. His arms shook as he used the remains of his strength to heave his body into a comfortable position on the uncomfortable bed and tug the paper-thin sheet over him. He gave Dr. Rosin a look that said, _I'm going to sleep_ , and she nodded. Earlier she'd explained that it was normal for people like him to go from energized to tired rather quickly.

He'd given a puzzled expression when she had told him that. Others like Mitch? With no voice and boring brown hair and dull eyes to match? Whomever those people were, he had the distinct feeling that it sucked to be them.

"Excellent." Dr. Eaton said. Mitch still had no idea what that word meant either. He'd probably never know. "How soon do you think he'll be ready to see them, Dr. Rosin?"

It was bright inside of his room. The brunette had gained the ability to tell time now, at least quasi-properly, and had the inclination that the light meant it was early in the...night? What was the opposite of night? Oh, right, _morning_. It was early morning. He needed to be around the voices as soon as possible. A single word puffed past his lips.

"Tonight."

He wasn't aware of the response either doctor gave. Mitch went dark then.

Well, he partially did.

Going dark seemed to last fewer hours than it had before he'd opened his eyes. When he went dark, that was it. His mind welcomed a solid, pure blackness that was heavy, thick, and resilient. All thoughts were silence, all ponderings quieted, all questions frozen in the middle of them being asked. The ground faded away, and so did the words attached to them. Darkness brought forth a limbo of nothingness that lasted both several hours and a few seconds. It was escape.

These days the darkness wasn't darkness anymore.

These days the darkness was _color_. And pictures. And voices and people and newness.

The color pictures voices people newness played in front of Mitch's eyes on repeat. Sometimes when he fell into sleep, he'd see the same thing. Other times he was presented with something different. They interested him in the fact that unlike when he was awake, he had absolutely no control over what he saw and didn't see.

Sometimes it was a little scary.

During this particular fleeting nap, a tiny ball of grey was curled up on his legs. The brown-eyed man was sitting on something soft and cushy that gave way to his figure. The ball of grey moved every so often, but stayed laying on top of him.

Curiously Mitch lifted his hand and touched the ball of grey.

It started, whipping its head around to stare up at him, the black pupils of its eyes surrounded by a pale green. It blinked at him while he blinked right back, before picking itself up to stand on four legs. Upon closer examination Mitch realized that it was some sort of animal, a hairless one with a thin tail and ears that were a little too big for its wrinkly head. Despite its weird appearance the brunette grinned and raised his hand to pet it.

The animal vibrated against his fingers, closing its eyes for a moment, then adding to the gesture by butting its head to his palm. As the pets continued, the animal continued to rumble contentedly.

Mitch sighed at it. "You're so weird, Wyatt. One minute you're looking at me like you want to claw my eyes out and the next you're purring your feline ass off. What's up with that, queen?"

 _Wyatt._ Somehow he knew that was the name of the animal. It was a name that suited it. Did it have a voice too?

The ball of grey named Wyatt opened his mouth to let loose a soft, " _Meow._ "

So it did have a voice. Intriguing. Then again, everybody and everything besides Mitch had a voice and knew how to use it, why should Wyatt be any different?

"I love you, kitty." Mitch gathered Wyatt in his arms and pressed his face to his little head. "Even when you drive me crazy. I still love you."

Then, as Wyatt started up his purr engine once more, the colors and sensations washed away until all of it was gone and nothing was left except for the black. Blank, pure blackness that swallowed his mind whole. What a terrifyingly interesting prospect.

After who knew how long, the darkness of sleep gave way to a shady greyness. It was then tinged with a reddish-white. Mitch felt his brain pulled into consciousness slowly; he soon became aware of the light chill of air flying across his skin, of the sharp smell of his hospital room, and the distinct heaviness of reality. His nap was over. That had been quite the show his mind had conjured up. What did it mean? And what was that grey animal thing by the name of Wyatt? Whatever it was, Mitch found himself missing it a little, it would've been nice to keep as a pet. It had been so _cute._

The brunette blinked awake. Light no longer poured through the window of his room, not even rays of orange that he had sometimes seen. Meaning that it was night. He'd slept the entire day away. Perhaps the limits he'd been pushing his body to meet the past week were taking their toll on him. Dr. Rosin wasn't lying; moving around really _was_ tiring.

He'd have to get used to that. People moved. And spoke, and had voices, and saw, and felt-

Mitch gasped and sat up too quickly in bed. Immediately his head protested the action and gave a faint throb. The voices. It was nighttime. He was going to hear them.

 _He was going to hear the pretty voice._

But wait a minute...it was night. It looked to be rather late at night.

Oh _shit!_

What if he had slept too late? What if the voices weren't waiting for him? What if they were packing their bags and leaving right this very minute and he didn't even know because he'd been passed the fuck out on his hospital bed? What if they had already left and he'd _missed them_ he'd missed his chance to hear them _they were gone_ they weren't coming back and he'd _never_ get to see them or talk to them _ever never ever_ because his lazy ass had been in bed thinking up some grey ball thing with pale green eyes that _purred!_

There was a new emotion flooding through him. Something fresh. It made his breathing speed up and his hands shake and his heart speed by. What was it called? _What was it called?_ If he couldn't have the voices, he was at the very least going to figure out what the fuck this new damn emotion was called. Not sadness...not anger...not irritation...all wrong, they were all wrong and he couldn't figure it out.

The door to his room opened. Dr. Rosin stepped in, her hair undone from its usual bun, the number of pens and pencils in her pocket looking significantly fewer than they were however many hours ago. Why was she here? Oh, yeah, the purple light must've winked. Right.

"Mr. Grassi, what's wrong?" She crossed the room in a few strides. In the next second she was at his bedside.

Mitch struggled to find words. Fucking _words_. There were so many of them, so many to choose from, so many options, so much to select. He whispered, "Are...they gone?"

"Are who gone?"

"The..." The brown-eyed man swallowed unsteadily, clutching his hands together to try and stop their almost violent trembling. No wonder he couldn't recall the word that described how he was feeling. There must not be one. "The voices. Gone?"

Dr. Rosin got a confused expression to her face. It only lasted a second, though, before it was replaced with understanding. "Your friends, you mean? No, they're not gone, Mr. Grassi. They're not even here yet. If you were worried about it being so late at night that they left, don't worry, it's early in the evening. I was on my way to wake you up because they'll arrive soon." Her own brown eyes watched him. "We can always send them back if they're too much for you to handle. Are you sure you're ready to see them?"

Mitch gave her the same blank stare he'd offered Dr. Eaton that morning. His hands stopped shaking, his breathing evened out, and his heart slowed.

"Doesn't matter." He whispered to her emotionlessly. "I need the push."


	3. Smile

**Hi, everyone! This chapter is a tish shorter than I intended it to be, but that's because the next one is going to be LOOOOOONG. It also might seem a little confusing at the end and that will be explained in the next chapter. Until then, y'all gotta wallow...**

 **My deepest thanks for all of your support of this story! I'm so glad you guys like it and are as excited for it as I am :)**

 **Thank you for all of your reviews, favorites, and follows! Enjoy, my readers!**

* * *

Panic. That was the name of the emotion that he had felt earlier. It was called _panic_. Mitch only knew this due to the fact that _not_ knowing bothered him enough to force him to ask Dr. Rosin. She told him that new word he could attach to the new emotion. He'd asked her how many letters were used to spell the word _panic_ , and she replied with the number five.

Five little letters described his emotions. Five little letters. No abrupt sucking in of breath, no desperate flailing of one's arms, no lungs exploding. Just five letters. That was all that was used.

What kind of world was he living in?

From what Nurse Roberta had talked to him one-sidedly about love, it was spelled using four letters, and yet it took over peoples _lives_. It ruled them like a mighty queen, beheading those it found unworthy of it, rewarding those it favored, and causing some part of you deep down inside to live for somebody else. It made you obsessive, delirious, drunk (whatever that meant), happy, sad, full, and a bunch of other emotions Mitch lacked the name for.

At least, that was what she'd told him. He had no clue. The brunette had no experience with love.

Back to his original point; what kind of world was he living in? Apparently a world that used the least amount of letters possible to pin down the most intense of feelings.

Like, what the fuck?

Who even _does_ that?

Seriously. That made no sense. When you really though about it, like Mitch was now, it truly made no sense whatsoever. An emotion that made you choke on your voice was only five letters long, and an emotion that made you die a little on the inside was only four.

Were they not special enough to be more than at least ten? They deserved that bare minimum. Mitch had heard a lot from Nurse Roberta, and it sounded like people owed panic and love.

They owed panic and love a _lot._

"Mr. Grassi?" Dr. Rosin's feminine serious tone broke through the brown-eyed man's train of thought. He wondered why she had stopped walking, but then realized it was because he had paused in place. Whoops. "It's important for you to focus. And to walk. And focus while walking."

Shaking his head to rid it of his last wild ponderings, Mitch centered his concentration, blinked, and moved forward down the hall of the hospital. That happened to him often, forgetting everything else around him and just thinking. However, sometimes it caused problems, like when Dr. Rosin was talking to him about something and he came back five minutes later with no clue as to what she was pertaining to. And it was causing a problem right now, too; another patient had almost run into him from behind. As they passed him they sent a mean look.

Mitch rolled his eyes at them. Many people did that when he spaced out to think and couldn't keep up. Even Dr. Rosin sometimes. What could he do, stop thinking about whatever he wanted to think about and pay attention to the task at hand?

Oh. Maybe he _should_ be doing that.

What was he supposed to be doing right now?

"Mr. Grassi, your friends are waiting for you." Dr. Rosin reminded him as he caught up to her. She must've seen his vaguely puzzled look. "We're walking to go see them."

Walking was tiring. Walking was exhausting. Walking was-

Wait a minute, what! The voices!? The voices were waiting for him? Holy shit, why hadn't he been focusing on that instead of panic?

Oh, right. The whole meeting-and-seeing-and-hearing-and-talking-to-the-voices thing had sort of made him panic in the first place. So he'd thought about panic to keep his mind off of the voices.

"How soon?" His voice asked softly. Mitch ignored the way his legs were beginning to yell at him in pain and tiredness. He would do this even if he slept for the next seven days or if his brain throbbed for eight.

"About thirty seconds, Mr. Grassi." Dr. Rosin answered. She cast him a glance and beckoned for him to follow her. He did so as she explained. "Now, you need to understand some things, okay? Your friends are going to act very strange and they might say things that make you wonder how they knew that. It's because of your memory. They remember you while you can't. Understanding so far?" The brunette nodded. So the voices would say strange stuff and bring newness. He already knew that. "Good. You also need to know that you must speak your mind. Even though your friends know a lot about you, even if you don't, they don't know what you're thinking. If something they say or do makes you scared or uncomfortable, tell them."

"They won't do that." Mitch whispered. The prettiest voice didn't make him uncomfortable or scared. It made him warm and slightly tingly and he _liked_ it. He was a little upset with himself that over the course of the past weeks, he had forgotten the name that the pretty nice chocolate voice was attached to, but figured that he would learn again someday. Or rather, today.

He still couldn't get over it. Not only would he hear the voice as deep as the ocean, the voice that resembled sounds other than it, the high girly one, he'd hear the pretty voice as well. And it might call him Mitchie or honey or sweetheart or beautiful. Nobody else had called Mitch those names except that voice. He also still, despite his knowledge of words growing as the days passed by, had no idea what any of the names meant. They sounded as pretty as the voice that spoke them, so maybe they didn't mean something bad.

"I know you say that, Mr. Grassi, but there's always the possibility." Dr. Rosin continued. "The last thing that you should know is that your friends are going to see you one at a time, okay? We don't think your brain can handle seeing them all at once. So you'll see them each for a few minutes, take a break afterwards, and if you're still able and ready, you can talk to all of them as a group for a short time."

Mitch nodded. Hear and see and talk to the voices one at a time, pause to make sure his head wasn't going to explode from pain, then hear them and see them and talk to them all together. He could do this. He was going to do this.

"Here we are." Dr. Rosin stopped in front of a door that was light wood, homey and relaxing-appearing, and made Mitch's blood shriek in fear. "Don't be afraid to speak your mind or ask them questions." She smiled a tiny smile. "There's no reason to be nervous."

There was every reason to be nervous.

Was there a vomit bin inside of the room? The yogurt he ate for breakfast was going to make a surprise appearance.

His temporary doctor must've noticed his hesitation, because she said, "There's no need to worry, Mr. Grassi. I'll be right outside if you need anything." Dr. Rosin smiled a little larger. "You'll be alright, okay?"

"Okay." Mitch whispered, allowing his lips to quirk up and match hers. He was going to be okay. The voices were here. Okay. Okay. The voices were okay and he was okay and everything was going to be okay.

He was going to hear the prettiest voice. That was more than okay.

"Your friends will join you in a minute." Her serious tone murmured as she twisted the handle of the door and pushed it open. The brunette slowly walked inside, looked behind him to see her nod, and heard the door click shut.

He had to admit, the room was nice. Its walls were open browns, and it had windows that showed the view of the night outside (which, Mitch noted, was a lot larger than the tiny window in his own room). In the center of the space was a low table the same color as the walls, boasting a small white bowl filled to the brim with little shiny red-and-white spheres, and on either side of it were couches that were an appealing creamy-tan. Since it was the opposite of morning, no light poured in from the windows, so a large bulb covered by something lit up the room. It was plain and modest and Mitch found himself liking the room.

It suited him; bland, ready to be filled with interest, and blankly comfortable because it knew nothing else.

Those little shiny things in the white bowl were drawing his attention. They were quite curious objects indeed. The brown-eyed man walked deftly to the table, plucked one, and held it close to his face to examine it. Whenever he moved in between his fingers, the shininess of it caught the light. It was a nice decoration. And, he found after bringing it to his nose, it had a sharp smell, too. Not like his room that reeked of familiar bleach, but a sharpness tanged with something else he couldn't remember.

In the middle of twisting the decoration in his thin fingers and listening as it made a crackling sound, the door opened. Mitch quickly dropped the shiny thing back in the bowl, as if he had been caught doing something bad, and took his time turning around. Had Dr. Rosin returned?

But no. Standing there with a smile on his face was a man. His skin was dark, like the color of Mitch's eyes, and his hair lighter than that by several notches. His eyebrows were even, his posture just as curious, and his smile sliding off of his face. His hands shoved themselves in the pockets of the jacket he wore and his eyes lit up in a way that made Mitch want to trust him. Honestly rolled off of that man in waves.

Who was he?

Was he the prettiest voice?

 _HOLY SHIT WHAT IF HE WAS?!_

Swallowing didn't help the lump in his throat disappear. Rubbing the pads of his fingers on his hospital shirt, Mitch said, if only to say something (no matter how quiet it was), "Hi."

The unknown man's smile came back and lit up the rest of his face along with his eyes. It was a nice sight. Jeez, he should seriously start paying attention in mental therapy more, he needed to learn more descriptive words. 'Nice' wasn't always going to cut it. Especially if this was the prettiest voice they were talking abo-

"Hello." He said back.

At the sound of his voice Mitch tried to prevent himself from deflating. Oh. He...his tone didn't match that of the pretty one that called him Mitchie and honey and sweetheart and beautiful. Maybe the brunette had just heard him wrong. Maybe...

"Can I sit down?"

Nope. It wasn't the prettiest voice.

Despite his disappointment, he nodded at the new person, who walked over to one of the couches and sat down. Not knowing what else to do, Mitch sat down on the couch opposite of him (he would admit that his legs were starting to hurt from standing as well). So, if this wasn't the pretty nice chocolate voice that made his bones tingle a little, he wasn't the high girly one, and he most certainly wasn't deep-as-the-ocean, therefore the voice that belonged to the man sitting in front of him (and eyeing him closely, at that) must be the one that sounded like things that wasn't it. It was the voice that mimicked the beeping and sounded like drums.

Interesting.

Mitch cocked his head to the side, the curiosity in his mind driving him to whisper, "Who are you?"

Even though the light in his chestnut brown eyes dulled a little, the man removed his hands from his pockets and his expression morphed into something more kind than it had been before (if such a thing was possible. His name might be The Kindest Man On Earth. The brunette wouldn't be surprised). "My name is Kevin Olusola. But sometimes my friends call me K.O. for short."

"Can I call you Kevin?"

"Of course." So his name wasn't The Kindest Man On Earth. Huh. "How are you doing today, Mitch?"

Said person being questioned felt their eyebrows pull together. The action made his forehead move weirdly and it took Mitch a moment to realize that he had never done that until now. His face might've forgotten, yet his brain hadn't (wasn't that a first). Wow, he really lacked expression in this hospital. His mild confusion gave him the courage to murmur yet another question. "You know my name?"

Kevin nodded, clasping his hands in front of him and leaning forward in his seat. It looked to be a position he took up often. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then opened it once more. "Dr. Rosin told us not to tell you too much, Mitch, because you need to learn some things on your own. I will say that you've been my friend for a while, and that's how I know."

Dr. Rosin. Yes, he knew she was trying to protect him from being pushed too far, but come on. Finally she let him talk to the voices, and they weren't allowed to talk back? This had _not_ been part of the deal.

Refraining the urge to frown lightly he returned with, "Oh."

"Yeah." Kevin added a tinge of what seemed to be the word _sorry_ on his next smile. He had many smiles. "I'll try to tell you as much as I can. The others should do some explaining themselves, though, so I can't promise I'll spill everything."

...spill everything? Mitch's gaze swept the room. What liquid was there to spill?

"Spill?" He questioned, feeling his eyebrows pull at his face again. "What are you going to spill? There's no water or anything..."

There was a moment in which Kevin appeared just as confused as Mitch, but then he shook his head and his shoulders shook. The brunette was concerned that wetness was going to start to escape his new acquaintance. But no wetness came. Something high-pitched and gritty let loose from the voice that sounded like everything else's mouth, a feat so unexpected and unfamiliar that it caused Mitch to shrink back in his seat a little.

Newness. Kevin brought it with him. No wonder...the voices always brought newness with them, and seeing their physical figure shouldn't (or rather, _didn't_ ) change that fact.

What was that new sound breaking from Kevin's upturned mouth that seemed like it was meant to be loud yet was being quieted for the smaller man's benefit? Did it start with a _g_...maybe a _c_...wait, wasn't it an _ell_ sound? Ugh. Figuring out new words was too confusing to put that much effort into it.

"Sorry, sorry." The other man eventually calmed down. He cast a glance at Mitch and his eyebrows shot up. Eyebrows could go lots of places, apparently. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He remained frozen. "I laughed because I thought you were joking when you asked me that question. It's my bad I thought you weren't serious."

"What does spilling mean?" Was what Mitch asked abruptly. The owner of one of the voices (though he didn't own the prettiest one) smiled and began explaining.

And so that was how his first conversation with Kevin Olusola went. Mitch asked a few questions, but was mostly content with listening and learning from the words spoken back to him. Their time was too short, however he picked up this much from the voice that had a face to match; he had gone to a school for very smart people that he called _Yale,_ practicing doing what Dr. Rosin was doing, which was being a doctor. Mitch learned Kevin spoke another language, called _Mandarin_ , and even though the tinier man couldn't understand it when Kevin spoke it to him it sounded impressive and he offered a grin once he had finished listening. Kevin played this instrument (yes, he knew at the very least what the broad term instrument meant. He just didn't know any specific ones) he referred to fondly as his cello (that he had named a vaguely familiar name: _Beyoncé_. Weird how that rang a faint bell). Towards the end of the conversation, the brunette inquired quietly why his new acquaintance wasn't a doctor now like Dr. Rosin.

"Well, I was doing good at Yale, and I had a passion for medicine, but..." Kevin shrugged. "I didn't realize it until it was almost too late. I had another passion, music, that I didn't know had grown as much as it had. I think I was sitting in my dorm one night playing my cello when it hit me that I wanted to do something with music for the rest of my life."

Mitch had moved from being squashed as far into the couch as he could get to leaning over its edge. The new information was swirling around his mind in speedy loops, making that specific part of the back of his mind hurt a bit. He was glad that he was learning new things though, especially from a voice. Flash cards? Screw flash cards! What use were they if you couldn't even understand them? Flash cards or listening to a _voice?_ Yeah, exactly. No contest.

"So what happened?" The constant talking had encouraged him to raise the volume of his bland voice, only slightly. He still whispered, just a little bit louder now.

"You really wanna know?" Kevin grinned at the eager nod Mitch gave. "Four people from all the way across the country pooled their money together and bought me a plane ticket."

No words were exchanged for several long seconds after that. Each man was waiting for the other to say something. The small brunette didn't even twitch at the information. It was just another part of Kevin's history, right? But why...why did he look so sad?

"That's great." Mitch made sure to quirk the corner of his mouth in hopes it would cause some of the faint sadness to seep from the expression of the voice sitting across from him. "You work in music now?"

"Yeah." Kevin's eyes regained some of their light. _Yes, mission accomplished!_ "I don't sing too often because I beat box instead."

"Show me?"

A second later noises that sounded inhuman and technological were exiting Kevin's mouth. He laid down a solid, consistent beat, and soon Mitch was absently bobbing his head along without thinking. The two started to groove in their seats, and when Kevin let loose a particularly fascinating twist the brown-eyed man allowed those same eyes to widen in surprise. This continued for another few minutes, though the session was interrupted when the came a loud knock on the door.

Somebody new opened it without waiting for approval. A man that looked shorter than Kevin popped his head inside; his eyes were a particular tint of green, and his brown hair curled at its ends as it met his shoulders (that were clad in a shirt that looked like it could belong to a man who spent his life hacking away at...ugh. What were trees made out of? Oh, that's right, _wood_ ). A shapely beard grew from his chin. His gaze travelled from Mitch to Kevin and then back four or five times more. The smallest of the three men felt his heart rate speeding up as the notion that that man, _that man_ could have the prettiest voice and if he _did_ then _oh shit_ Mitch was so so so _close_ to the person who made him try and brought him back-

"Hey, guys. Sorry to interrupt."

Okay...whoa.

 _Whoa._

Mitch gave a start at the sound of the new voice. It was definitely NOT the pretty nice chocolate one, but rather the one that was as deep as the ocean that he wanted to plunge his head into so that it would stop burning. His lips parted in his surprise, and he gawked. How could he not?

Kevin stopped his beat boxing (aww...it had been really cool) and turned to the voice that was as deep as the deepest bedrock on Earth. "It's cool, man. We got..." Here he morphed his tone so that it sounded robotic. " _A little distra-era-era-act-era-era-acted._ "

"Seriously, Kev?" Green eyes rolled. "You're not even in here for fifteen minutes and you're already scarring him with your horribly addictive beat boxing?"

Said beat boxer stood from his seat and stretched his arms. Mitch felt confused. Wait, the man with the voice as deep as the ocean didn't like Kevin's beat boxing? What? How could he not, it was amazing!

"You know it, baby." Several drum-like noises erupted at high speed from Kevin's mouth. The man with green eyes started to let loose long, deep notes that corresponded almost too well with the frantic sounds escaping his opposer, while Mitch sat there and gaped at the two of them. They seemed to get lost in their own world for a few moments, but once the bearded man caught sight of the smaller brunette, he paused and sent a sorry smile of his own.

"Hi, Mitch. Sorry about Kevin's _awful_ beat boxing-" Here a punch was aimed at his shoulder that he neatly dodged. "But he can't help but take advantage of those unfortunate enough to have never heard of his...skill."

"I don't understand." Mitch whispered. He was still confused. Okay, so, the deep-as-the-ocean voice didn't like Kevin's beat boxing, but he added to it using his own voice anyway (and wait a second, he knew Mitch's name too? Huh?). "You don't like it?"

"Avi _more_ than likes my beat boxing." Kevin's smile had adopted a bit of a playful bite to its edges. "He just doesn't want to admit it."

"You keep telling yourself that."

"Who's Avi?" Mitch piped up in his same nearly silent tone.

The two voices just looked at him for a moment. Their eyes reflected the same blankness that the brunette tended to wear constantly these days (or for as long as he could remember). Then, after Mitch had begun to wonder if he had, yet again, done something wrong, the man with green eyes spoke. "That's...that's me. That's my name. Avi Kaplan."

"Oh." Avi Kaplan...the name of the voice that sunk to the bottom of the ocean. "Hi Avi."

"Hi." Avi said back, hesitating before giving a little wave. His next words were directed at Kevin. "You...um, not that I'm complaining or anything, but you stayed five minutes into my time, so I only have ten minutes-"

The beat boxer instantly got a look to his face that resembled how Mitch had felt earlier that day. What was that five letter word? Ah, right, _panic_. Kevin felt panic? Why? "I'm sorry, brother, I just got really into talking to him..."

"It's fine." The voice that was as deep as the ocean assured. Every word that escaped his mouth sounded assuring, what with how low his tone was. "I won't..." Here he cast the tiniest man (who was still sitting in his chosen couch, blinking his eyes, and rearranging the features of his face so they were devoid of emotion. Moving your face muscles kind of hurts when you haven't done so for a few weeks) a serious look, and dropped his voice so low that he almost didn't catch what Avi said. "I'm not going to affect him as much as the rest of the trio will. And you aren't, either. He'll need time to bounce back from seeing them, but not us, because we..."

"...we weren't as close to him as they were."

"Right." Avi suddenly raised his vocal volume to normal. "So, your amazing skills aside, you should get to the waiting room. Dr. Rosin wants to talk to you."

Mitch watched as a breath sighed from Kevin's unsmiling mouth. Maybe he shouldn't have asked who Avi was and just figured it out by himself. Even though it would take longer, and hurt his head more, at least the voices would be spared of the burden his questions brought. "Alright. Who's in after you?"

"Who do you think, Kev?" Avi raised one eyebrow instead of two. This wasn't just meeting up with the voices, this was a crash course in _Eyebrows 101_. "She's holding the best for last."

That sentence caused Mitch's heart to beat slightly faster than it had been previously. The best for last...the _best_ for last...that must meant the prettiest voice was here. The prettiest voice was _here_...to see _him!_ To talk to him! And he would finally know what the pretty nice chocolate voice looked like; if their face was lean enough to match their bodies, if they walked with a limp, if their eyes were sharp and grey or soft and brown, if their tongue spoke slowly, if they crumbled when their frame was slammed down with weight. If...if...if...there was so much to _know_. So much to find out.

He couldn't help it. Ignoring the small amount of aching his cheeks gave, the brunette smiled widely at his thoughts. Pondering over that pretty voice made his head spin. In a good way.

"Mitch?"

Whoops. Getting lost in thought again. Bringing self back to earth. Hoping the voices weren't mad at him for leaving temporarily.

"Sorry." He whispered, lifting his legs in order to clutch them to his chest, his split-second grin fading faster than the bat of an eyelash. "Thinking."

"It's okay to think." It was Kevin that was doing the reassuring this time. "That's better than okay, that's really good. You just looked really far away and I was wondering if you were alright."

"I do that."

"Go far away?"

Mitch nodded, picking at a stray string of fabric that had come undone from his hospital shirt.

Avi's face was a mix of slightly confused and something else that the brown-eyed man had no name for (was he going to have to start reading a book that was all about words in order to be able to use some new ones? But...he had to remember how to read first, as he was still unable to). "Is it okay if I talk to you for a few minutes, Mitch?"

Mitch blinked. Was this okay, was that okay, no that's okay, wanted to know if you were okay, okay, okay, okay, he was okay. That words was used a lot. Okay. Yes, Avi sitting down and talking to him was okay. So he nodded.

It was then that Kevin smiled and left the room with a simple, "Bye, Mitch. I'll see you when you talk to the group of us." He closed the door behind him. Dr. Rosin had mentioned talking to the entire group of voices at once, but it had never really occurred the Mitch that he could be talking to a lot of voices. Like, a _lot._ How many voices had visited him? He couldn't possibly remember the name that attached to each and every one, and what if they expected him to, what if-

"Mitch?" A deep tone asked.

Snapping back to reality, he tucked his knees closer to his chest and gave a emotionless look.

"Did you go far away just now?"

"Yes."

"Alright." Deep-as-the-ocean voice regarded Mitch carefully. "Let's start out right. My real name is Avriel Kaplan, but I prefer everybody calls me Avi, because my mom calls me Avriel and it brings back memories." The tiny brunette smiled at this. Kevin had worn off on him, or smiling was becoming easier the more he did it. "Let's see...I've been told not to tell you too much and that-"

"-I need to learn. On my own." Shit. This deal was utterly bogus. "Kevin says so." Then he paused lengthily to add, "I like Kevin."

An unknown expression settled on Avi's features. "I like Kevin too."

"He's nice."

"He's my best friend." The bearded man admitted quietly. "I only met him a few years ago...but he's been like a brother to me for the longest time."

Their conversation was very similar to the one Mitch had had previously, just shorter. Avi, from what he would relent, was a singer (he described himself as a 'bass', which apparently was a position taken up by somebody who talked as low as he did), had a sister by the name of Esther, and had a particular flare when it came to cooking. Mitch had inquired if he was a singing chef, and that made his shoulders shake like Kevin's had not ten minutes prior. After he was asked what he was doing, Avi said it was called _laughter_.

So it did start with an _ell_ sound! At least sort-of-ish!

Discovering new things was ever so satisfying.

Actually... _was_ that a new thing? Hadn't the pretty voice laughed or something while it held his hand? It must not have, because laughing sounded happy, and when the pretty voice had laughed, it hadn't sounded happy. Laughter was confusing.

Knocks rattled the door, swift things that caused both men to jump. They, too, had been having a rather deep talk.

It opened, and in the doorway stood a girl.

 _She's the high girly voice._ Mitch thought as she trained her amber eyes on Avi. _What's her name?_

"Time's up." She said, her voice empty but trying to pretend it wasn't so. "My turn, Avi." Then she seemed to catch herself and shook her head. "That was rude."

Avi shrugged her apology off. "Don't worry, I was the exact same when Kevin was leaving." His green eyes glinted at the small brunette, who felt a bit more alive. The knowledge of the voices that had comforted him made him feel more _alive_ , more safe, more secure. He'd have to tell them that one day. Some of the staleness he'd adopted as his trademark expression was melting away because of them.

"Oh." The girly voice said as a means of response. Her voice was hesitant and quiet, much like the brown-eyed man's own. Judging by her appearance, though, she wasn't bland and boring like him; she wore a bright purple top that had a drawing of something on it, followed by words that Mitch couldn't read. Her bottoms were bright white, weren't they called _jeans_...and they were ripped at the knees. Her hair brushed just above her shoulders, and her eyes were lined with black, making them intimidating. She would've been quite the fierce sight if her expression didn't appear so tired.

The 'bass', or so he called himself, nodded at Mitch as he picked himself up from his seat. Aww...Avi had to go. Just like Kevin. Why did the voices leave so fast? They never wanted to leave when they were holding his hand. Why did they go now...

Wait a minute...oh. Oh, right. He was going to see the voices all together. Right. He'd forgotten.

Mitch blinked at the man with green eyes as he made his way over to the door. Avi gave him a goodbye wave, same as the wave he'd used to say hello, and murmured something in the ear of the girl. Her body stiffened at whatever he had said, and her nod was jerky when he was finished and looking at her face for confirmation. She wasn't sad, wasn't lucky, she was...oh, no...

Fuck. She was _angry_. Was she angry at Mitch?

What did he ever do? She was the one who freaking came in his room and held his hand and spoke to him in her high girly voice and everything. Talking about her tiny thingies called _dogs_ that she had. Was she angry at him because he didn't show he was listening? He couldn't help it. Listening hurt. _Showing_ that he was listening hadn't even crossed his mind until the pretty nice chocolate voice asked him to try.

There came the sound of the door closing. The girl finally let her gaze land on the tiny brunette, and also let her face smile. It didn't look like Avi or Kevin's smile, full of light and at least a bit of energy; it was weary, forced, similar to the way Mitch smiled, like she hadn't used the muscles for a long time. A beat passed between them before she walked over to the couch opposite of him and sat down.

A weirdness that had not existed previously began to choke the room. Mitch swore he felt the pressure around his ears greaten, and subconsciously shifted his body away from the high girly voice, drawing his knees even closer to his chest. He peeked at her from between his knees. She was watching him, her own eyes a blend of emotions. No, she wasn't watching, she was staring, like she was going to leap at him if he so much as lifted a finger.

The weirdness did not go away. Mitch wanted the weirdness to go away.

It was making him uncomfortable.

Should he tell her? Dr. Rosin had told him to tell the voices if they were making him scared or uncomfortable. But then she might get even more angry. Mitch had the feeling that the high girly voice could do some damage while she was angry.

But then...if she was angry at him, why did she visit him?

What if the prettiest voice was angry with him too?

That would be _horrible_.

"How's it going, Mitch?" When said person peeked at her again, her eyes were less cold and her posture less forced. She slumped in her seat, like sitting took her actual effort, and mustered up a smile that was a bit more genuine.

"Okay." He whispered.

"That's good." She replied, her words clipped.

It was good that he was doing okay? But wasn't okay less than good? So if good and okay were the same thing then why hadn't he just said good? He hadn't known such words could be connected then torn apart to be separate so quickly, maybe that's why she was staring at him that way again, shit was she angry that he had used the word okay and not the word good because he'd snatch them out of the air in an instance and smile and whisper as much as he could if she would only _stop staring at him_ like that, like he was the one being weird, like he was freaky, like...

Like she didn't know who he was.

All of Mitch's buzzing thoughts were replaced with a single bold question mark. It was tied to the ground, just like the rest of his thoughts tended to be these days, but it was in the front of his mind and refused to move from its spot.

Avi and Kevin had acted like they knew him (even though he had never seen them before in his life and had no idea how they knew him), and talked easily with him even though they'd pause at random points to widen their eyes, chuckle an apology (Mitch didn't know what for, no mean words had exited their mouths), and continue the deep but comfortable conversation. This girl, with her high girly voice, even though she knew his name and visited him a lot...was as familiar with him as he was with her.

That is to say, they were two complete strangers to one another.

"Do you know me?" Mitch asked almost silently.

Her face froze for a second. "Yeah. I know you."

"Oh." The brunette studied her shirt, squinting at it for a moment, and then dared to meet her eyes again. He couldn't resist the question he asked next. It was harmless, after all, he was allowed to ask questions. It was the same question he had asked Kevin directly, Avi indirectly, and though she looked angered she might not mind answering it for him. "Who are you?"

And then suddenly the air went still.

Very still.

Time stopped. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Thought no longer flowed like a smooth river; faster than the word fast something ran up to the river and made it stop in its place. Nighttime, found outside of the medium-sized windows, fell silent at the question, at the words, at the air that blew past parted lips and joined other air found in the room. Somehow, within all of that stillness, within all of that nothing, within the condensed frame of time, something happened.

"Kirstin." The girly voice said. "Kirstin Maldonado." She took in a breath and fixated her cold eyes on Mitch's own once more. They lost some of their bite, but gained wariness instead. "Do you...know who I am?"

It took the brunette a moment to compose himself. He was already nervous enough about whispering, and her ice-like words with eyes to match weren't helping in the slightest. A brief glance at his knuckles showed that they were white from gripping the sides of his hospital-pant-covered legs so hard. "N-No."

"That makes sense." Kirstin narrowed her black-lined eyes. Her voice changed, carrying anger for sure, and a touch of something else. "Because you're not him, are you?"

Her words caused Mitch to completely stop all movement, save a whispered, "What?"

"You're right, I know who you are." Her eyes remained unforgiving. But wetness was gathering in them. Tears. The brown-eyed man had experienced them himself. Why was she crying? What was wrong? Maybe he shouldn't have answered her question, maybe he shouldn't have asked his own...yet he had felt the urge to. He was curious. Too curious. Lying in that bed for as long as he had made his curiosity everything but unsquashable. "Or who you were." Some of her tears spilled over, and Kirstin twisted her hands in her lap. "I knew who you _were_."

The high girly voice was making no sense. She had known who he _was?_ He had _been_ somebody? Kirstin talked in the past tense, implying that she had known a Mitch that existed before Mitch himself had. But that was impossible. He had always been...himself. There was no before, there was no has been, there was only a will be.

"I am me." Mitch whispered to her.

As her breaths became more and more uneven, Kirstin's expression changed more and more. Her eyes remained cold, but their whites were tinged pink, and the black around them was blending and becoming less sharp. She was angry-looking one second, then sad, then resembled panic, then was angry, then panic, then sad, then- "No. You're not him. He's gone."

"Who is he?" The brunette asked quietly, pressing his back even further away from the high girly voice that was starting to make something vaguely familiar start to gush in his veins. It didn't feel good. It felt horrible, whatever this new emotion was.

"Mitch." Kirstie snapped her head up from where she had briefly buried it in her hands. Her face was mean, the meanest face aimed at him the brown-eyed man had ever witness, meaner than the ones he received when he went far away in the middle of a hallway or something. " _My_ Mitch. He's gone...and you're in his place."

"W-What? I d-d-don't-" Hearing the stutter in his words slightly shocked Mitch. He hadn't remotely messed up a word since the first time he said his own name. It was probably that unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach fucking up his speech.

"Of course you don't." Kirstie shook her head and her fists clenched together. The black around her eyes was dripping down her cheeks. "Because you don't _remember_ him! You don't _remember_ who you were. You don't remember me...you don't remember me and I missed you so much..." Here she let out a single hiccup.

"I'm sorry." What else could he say, really?

She swiped at her eyes with her fingers, lifting her eyes to stare at him again. No, not stare, _glare_. "He's gone. You took him away from me."

"I am me." Mitch protested, feeling tears prick the backs of his own eyes. He sucked in air a little faster than he usually would. Now he was fully squashed as far away for the girl as he could get. "I'm Mitch."

"No you're not!" Kirstin got such a horrible look to her face that the brunette's tears spilled over at the sight. "Mitch is dead." She shook her head again, bewildered. "Oh my god, I never let myself say it out loud...Mitch is _dead_..."

Dead. According to her, he was dead. What did it mean to be dead? It didn't sound like a big word, it didn't sound like something difficult for him to understand, but nonetheless apparently Mitch was dead. Dead. And that made Kirstin sad.

"I am here-"

"Mitch is _dead!_ " The high girly voice suddenly stood up and rose the volume of their voice to a screech. Mitch was petrified with that awful feeling in his veins. Wetness continued to spill from his eyes. "Mitch is dead because you took him away! Oh my god, oh my _god!_ MITCH IS DEAD AND YOU'RE IN HIS PLACE!"

A most peculiar thing started to happen just then. Weird blackness began to muddle the edges of Mitch's vision, and to muddle his brain. His breathing came quicker with every yell that escaped Kirstin's vocal chords. His thoughts, grounded to his mind and bold and there, were snipped of their ties and floated away. The blackness grew and grew. Mitch shakily stood up from the couch and held a hand to his stomach. He didn't feel well. Oh, no, his yogurt was going to come up, he had told Dr. Rosin this! Where the fuck was the-

"He's gone!" Kirstin was sobbing while shrieking. Her whole body was shaking almost as much as Mitch's was. "He's gone, and so are _they_ , your parents are gone too, and my mom, MY MOM IS GONE, just like Mitch!" She pointed accusingly at the trembling brunette. "They were on their way to see you-"

Her words left a faint ring instead of sound inside of Mitch's light head. Interesting. He couldn't hear her anymore, and almost couldn't see. Breathing was fast but labored, his stomach doing flips, his feet slowly crumbling and losing their balance.

And then all at once his head kicked into gear right _there._

"Ow!" Mitch whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut, clawing his hands against his head. It didn't just burn anymore, it shocked, it sizzled, it roared its displeasure and caused waves of pain to turn the brown-eyed man's brain into a pile of hot mush. The room spun. He stumbled.

"Mitch, I...oh my god, what the hell-I'm sorry, I just started my meds-" That was the high girly voice didn't sound so angry anymore. Kirstie seemed to have reared it in.

Pain. Pure pain. Pure _burn_. The small man's body spun around and around in disproportionate circles as he grasped the very edge of consciousness. His head was going to end him. He pressed his palms to his temples, swaying, his eyes fluttering closed (he couldn't see anything anyway, so there was really no point in keeping them open). Wetness flowed down his face, causing his throat to close up and his breath to morph into gasping heaves.

It was utter torture. It had never been this bad.

The pain in his head had never been _this bad_.

"My head." Mitch whispered the quietest whisper he had ever whispered. Barely feeling it, his legs carried him in a direction that he had the vague notion was called backwards until his back hit something solid and he stopped. "My head. My head. My head."

"Mitch, oh god, I'm so sorry-"

"My head, my head, my head, my head."

"Mitch, I'm going to go get somebody, I'm sorry, it's my fucking medication, it's new and I-"

"My head my head my head my head my head my head my head my head..."

The phrase continued and continued on repeat. Mitch didn't know how to say anything else, how to make his mouth move any differently.

"NURSE! Somebody, please help, he's having a freak out and I don't know what to do! Nurse! Fucking _somebody!_ "

That high pitched tone made Mitch want to yell back, and before he even realized he was doing it he let out the loudest scream he had ever released since learning how to talk. His face transformed into a smile as the single screech ripped through him, because it meant that he had a voice, his voice was loud, it hurt his throat and his head god his fucking head but it would be alright because he had a very loud voice and he had to thank the voices later on for showing him that, he had to thank the girly voice for showing him, even if she was a little scary and freaky and cold he had a voice _yes yes yes_ thank fuck his voice was more than a bland whisper, it was an animal, it could _claw_ and _tear_ and _break_.

"Mr. Grassi! My god, Miss Maldonado, what did you _say?_ You were instructed to be careful-"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to! It's my damn medication, I knew I shouldn't have started it yesterday, god Avi was right, he was right, and I'm sorry Mitch-"

Teeth chattering, body frame shaking, head throbbing so forcefully it could be his heart. Voices. It was always the voices that brought new things. Kevin and Avi had been so nice...but Kirstie was the mean one who taught him to raise his voice.

It was a shame Mitch hadn't gotten to hear the prettiest one. Maybe he never would. Familiar sleep waving at him told him that he'd seldom score a chance to hear and talk to and see the pretty nice chocolate voice ever again, but oh well, time's up, time to smile and go dark.

So the brunette pulled his face into a smile, hoping it carried the lightness Kevin and Avi attached to the gesture. He truly was grateful to them for showing him how to do that, even though he didn't understand half the words they said or why they said them and damn, he hadn't gotten to hear the pretty voice, he'd heard each one except that one. But he smiled anyway and blinked at the calm blackness surrounding him.

Then he went dark.


	4. Pretty

**Okay whoooooaaaaa. This chapter did NOT turn out like how I expected it would, so instead of being the more shocking explanation chapter I'd hoped for, it ended up being a bit of a filler. HOWEVER, it's a useful filler, because there are references to things that go into effect later in the story. So eeeeeeee for foreshadowing!**

 **This is the part where they MEET. Not as dramatic as some of y'all might be expecting, but keep in mind that though Scott is sad (well, a bit more than sad. The next chapter really WILL be an explanation chapter, not a filler), he's also conscious of the fact that Mitch is supposed to treat him like a stranger due to his memory loss. So for right now he's not a sobbing mess in front of Mitch...that's for later chapters :P**

 **By the way, would you guys like it if I wrote a chapter or two in Scott's POV? I've been debating it. Let me know!**

 **Thank you for all of your reviews, favorites, and follows! Enjoy!**

* * *

No pain. The first thing he noticed was that there was no pain. No burn, no throb, no ache, no pound.

In the place of pain was a void.

It stretched to the left and right, up and down, side to side then diagonal-ways. Everywhere. The void was everywhere, and devoured everything in its blackness. Thought fizzled out here. Emotion disappeared. Speech silenced. Not a single sound could be heard in the space where he was. Just quiet and no pain and drifting in the sky of blankness.

It was actually quite nice. Why wasn't it like this all the time? He could easily stay here forever.

Days passed, years vanished, seconds ticked by so quickly that by the time your eye had blinked it was already tomorrow and you hadn't a clue where the moment had gone. He aged and aged and aged in the nothing, the area that would've been his shoulders growing heavier with weight as whatever 'time' was went on. Soon it was almost too heavy to bear. Uh oh. The pain was coming back now. Strong, too.

Fucking shit. That hurt like hell.

Colors danced in front of his gaze. A small prick greeted his arm and with it his head (ah, right, his _head_ was the area that held pain) gained hurt nearly as fast as he had aged. But with the hurt came something other than color...a name was presented to him in a style that was very familiar, bold and _there_ , in front of him and grounded to the floor.

 _Mitch Grassi._

This time it didn't take as long; because the instant the name waved hello to his head and gave its best smile (though it appeared that it wasn't used to doing this, as the shape of it was all wrong and it looked like it took effort) he knew who it belonged to. Him. It was his name. He'd forgotten it again, but it came back to him.

Mitch sensed some of the weight on his shoulders lighten and move to his eyes. Suddenly he could feel his body again. He was curled up somewhere, on a surface that was unforgiving and cold. His pulse beat faintly through the tips of his fingers, back down to his heart, then further to his toes. Mitch's head lessened in its painful hurting a little. Something (or somebody) touched his left hand, and his body involuntarily twitched.

All at once he was bombarded as his memories returned to him. Mitch recalled now; his name, how to think in terms of _I_ , the hospital, Dr. Rosin, what he looked like, the voices, seeing them hearing them talking to them, screaming that one loud unintelligible scream, Kirstie Avi Kevin and their smiles...and speaking of Kirstie Avi Kevin, speaking of the voices, speaking of the hospital, _where the fuck was the pretty nice chocolate voice_ and was it the voice that was touching his hand that it had clutched so tightly once Mitch had squeezed it back? Was it?

Only one way to find out.

"Mr. Grassi, can you hear me?"

Mitch's pupils fluttered open as he took in an abrupt gasp of air. It tasted of staleness and bleach, a combination that made his brain immediately zip to the conclusion that he was laying in bed in his room. Damn. Even if walking was tiring, he'd rather do it than be cooped up on his hospital bed, watching with a bored air as doctors unknown shoved 'flash cards' in his face.

But no. He wasn't there. The brunette sensed his right hand clutching the other side of his face, fingers cinched, nails pricking against his scalp. Knees were tucked into his chest (his own, he realized) and he wasn't curled up on his hospital bed. Mitch was on the floor.

...why was he on the floor?

"Mr. Grassi." That hand squeezed his left briefly. It was almost as small as his, cool in temperature. Not the hand of the prettiest voice. Shit. "Are you alright? Does your head hurt?"

 _Not anymore._ Mitch thought, breathing out the air he'd quickly let in, allowing his pupils to adjust to the light. What he immediately saw was Dr. Rosin's solemn face peering at him, her eyebrows pulled together (oh, they could do that too? How interesting). He whispered, "What..."

"Don't try to speak yet, Mr. Grassi." She said firmly. "Your vocal chords might've gone through intense trauma when you screamed."

 _Trauma?_ What was _trauma?_ It sounded like a word that could be applied to a color. Like Mitch's eyes. His eyes were the dark bland soulless color of trauma.

An abrupt cough rattled its way up the brunette's throat. His vocal chords (which had apparently gone through 'trauma') gave a faint whistling noise and felt raw as he hacked a single hack. "Ow..."

"Do not speak." Mitch had never heard Dr. Rosin use that tone with him before. He quieted right away, feeling a less intense version of the emotion that he had felt when Kirstin had yelled at him. It was faint, but there, and right on the spot he decided that he didn't like it. Not at all.

Therefore Mitch did not speak. He remained curled up on the uncomfortable floor as Dr. Rosin examined him; she pressed her hands lightly to the sides of his throat, set a finger against his wrist and his temple, shone a light in his eyes that were the color of trauma. It was after a few minutes of doing this that she finally seemed satisfied, and motioned for him to get up.

Slowly, the small man removed his hands from where their positions were at the sides of his head, blinked, and picked himself up so that he was sitting. Dr. Rosin moved away from her spot beside him to give him some space. Mitch was glad that she did, because the room swam a little in his vision, coaxing that specific point at the back of his head to throb. He winced, unable to help himself, and asked quietly, "Where...am...I?"

Dr. Rosin sighed tiredly. A part of Mitch grew with the guilt that he was the reason her next words carried exhaustion. "You're in one of the meeting rooms in the hospital, Mr. Grassi. Do you remember meeting with your friends?" Mitch nodded. _The voices._ He'd liked the first two, but the last one had taught him to scream. And showed him that awful feeling that had gushed through his veins, cold, paralyzing. "You're on the floor because...your third friend, Kirstin Maldonado, she...well, she began to have a negative reaction to some medicine that she takes."

Kirstin took medicine? For what? Pain in her head? Was she like Mitch, was she the people that were like him that Dr. Rosin had told him about, was she bland and boring and without voice? But no, she couldn't be...could she?

His questions must've shown on his face (maybe it was his eyebrows giving him away). Dr. Rosin said, "She is very unhappy, Mr. Grassi. A lot of bad things have happened to her lately, things that made her sad, so her therapist recommended that she take medicine to help her be happy again. Sometimes, though, when people take medicine to be happy, they take the wrong kind, or the medicine takes a while to start working, or before the medicine starts to work it makes the person taking it feel worse."

Mitch didn't understand over half of the words spoken to him, and barely comprehended what he _could_ grasp. Kirstin was sad...okay...why was she sad? The voices all seemed to know each other as well as they knew Mitch. Weren't they there for her, holding her hand, talking to her with their voices to give her contentedness? _Unhappy_ , _therapist_...more unknown words that flitted to and fro before exiting his brain, never to be pondered over again.

"Kirstin..." Whispering hurt a little. Vocal chords didn't like to scream, Mitch guessed. That's not what they were made for despite having the ability to do so. "Okay?"

"Miss Maldonado is better now, yes." Dr. Rosin sighed once more, her amber gaze gaining something the brunette couldn't quite place. It was like...like she wasn't telling him something. "She calmed down after she realized what she was doing to you. That's how you ended up on the floor."

"Oh." That's right, he was on the floor. Right. Mitch glanced down at himself, and noticed a small point on his arm that was emitting something bright red. He pinched at the spot.

"My apologies." Dr. Rosin took his arm from him carefully, got a piece of cloth from her pocket, and wiped the area. The red disappeared. "I had to inject you with a dose of-" Here she said a word so long and complicated that Mitch couldn't even picture it in his head. It sounded like Kevin's Mandarin. "-to help ease you from your panic."

"Panic?"

"Yes, panic. You had a panic attack, Mr. Grassi."

"Oh."

Well that didn't sound too great. Panic _attack?_ He knew what the first word meant, however the second one was lost on him. _Attack_... _attack_...hmm...

"You've stabilized now...but..." The serious feminine voice regarded Mitch with another expression he had no name for, God, he was bad at this. "...I don't believe that you're stable enough to see your last remaining friend."

His last remaining friend? Oh, right, there were four voices, duh, the high girly one, the one as deep as the deepest bedrock, the one that imitated sounds other than it, and the prettiest voice.

The prettiest voice.

...the prettiest voice was the last voice. And Dr. Rosin was saying that...that...she wasn't going to let Mitch hear it?

 _Everybody stop._

What the literal fucking hell sideways off of a mountain into the ocean then back again.

Mitch was damn close. Forget that, he wasn't damn close, he was _fucking_ close. He was so fucking close that he could practically feel the warmth of the pretty nice chocolate voice on his left hand. He'd met the other voices, seen them, heard them, talked with them, and though he had liked all of that he had held out because he knew he was going to see that prettiest voice. He had known it. That was the deal. That had been the _deal_.

And now Dr. Rosin was saying he couldn't see the prettiest voice.

Fuck no.

They'd have to drag him kicking and screaming back to his hospital bed. Mitch didn't like screaming, but he would do it. He hadn't had whatever a panic attack was just to come back and hear he wasn't going to see the voice he'd looked forward to the most.

"No." The man with brown eyes whispered, staring directly at Dr. Rosin. "I will see the prettiest voice."

His temporary doctor opened her mouth, most likely to argue with him, but Mitch mustered up such a glare that he managed to silence her voice before it could speak, and Dr. Rosin gave a reluctant, but final, nod.

* * *

Water greeted Mitch's cheeks with a refreshing sting. His fingers rubbed along his face, working the nice coolness into his skin, leaving no area dry. He'd learned wetness wasn't just tears, it was, in a more broad term, _water_. The brunette hadn't learned this due to those horrid 'flash cards', he'd learned it while taking his first shower.

Chair in the small square-like space. Sit in the chair. Keep your eyes on the silver things. Use this square that smells like something sour ( _lemon_ , perhaps?) to clean your body. Nurse Roberta outside the curtain if he fell. Now _spray_ , holy shit, wetness was everywhere, and it was way too cold, c-c-cold, c-c-c-co-co-co-l-l-l-d, oh my god was wetness supposed to be this c-c-c-cold? Mitch had sat there and shivered and used the square of what he had recalled was soap to clean his body, and after a few minutes he'd whispered he was done, but Nurse Roberta hadn't heard him, so he'd whispered he was done again, but again she didn't notice, so he'd sat there with his teeth chattering and his arms wrapped around his body to try and stay warm. This went on for ten minutes until finally Nurse Roberta had peeked inside to ask if he was finished and had gasped her apologies and immediately shut off the water.

His first shower, obviously, had not been too great.

Mitch's second shower was better; he had noted there was a knob that was blue at one side and red at another, purple in the middle. The brunette hadn't been intent on being drenched in freezing water, which led him to reach forward and twist the knob past the purple and into the red zone. That had been a mistake; the water turned far too hot, hot enough to make his eyes water and his skin go from olive to pink and his body to try and pick itself up from his shower-chair, to no avail. Thank god it hadn't lasted more than a few seconds, as Nurse Roberta had saved him by cranking the knob back to the blue zone (not as far as before), and she'd promised then to always make sure it was not cold or hot, but cool leaning towards cold. Mitch had been fine with that.

From that point onward (or rather, during the week and a half before the day he learned he would meet the voices and actually met them that same day) the brown-eyed man always washed with cool-leaning-on-cold water. Hot water freaked him out more than cold water did. Wetness that burned you and made your skin pink? Hell no.

That was what he was doing right now, actually. Well, he wasn't taking a _shower_ , he was just pressing cool-leaning-on-cold water to his face, said wetness coming from one of the sinks in the public hospital bathroom not far from the meeting room. Dr. Rosin had suggested, after he'd claimed he _would_ see the prettiest voice tonight, that he go to this close-by bathroom and splash some water on his face to help calm settle in.

Mitch had already been calm (after his 'panic attack', as it had been called, had happened, he'd felt okay), though now with the water on his skin he felt the last traces of paralysis, that feeling that felt bad, and lingering tiredness ebb. Standing on his legs hurt still, however even that pain lessened. Wetness was confusing. It did so many things, came from so many places.

There was a mirror in this public bathroom. It was bigger than the one that resided in his personal hospital room. The small man spent a moment practicing his smiles at himself, trying to make it look like Kevin and Avi's, or at the very least natural. No matter how many times he tried it always looked strained.

He'd work on smiling later.

Hell, it probably took a long time of doing it to be as good at it as Avi and Kevin were, anyway. They'd most likely had a lot of time to practice. Mitch had only just found out smiling was something he could do himself not an hour ago.

After snatching a thin, brown paper towel from the dispenser, wiping his face, and crumpling it into the trash can, Mitch arranged his features so that they were no longer smiling and headed out the door of the public bathroom. In the hallway people bustled about, some with canes, some with walkers, some in these contraptions that appeared like they were a chair but actually had wheels, some looking at him and whispering to their patient or doctor once he caught them and looked right back. What? Did they all find out just how awful he was at smiling? Sure, it was bad...was it really that bad? Maybe he should ask Kevin and Avi for pointers. Seriously.

The brunette reached up to pinch the corner of his mouth. No smile leapt to claim his lips. Alright. Fair game. One can't hope for too much too soon. Speaking of which...

Mitch suddenly remembered that the pretty nice chocolate voice would be waiting for him. Oh god, how had he forgotten?! Smiling must've made him go far away. Yup, he could tell, that person using a cane to walk was sending him a mean look. Oops.

The door to the meeting room wasn't difficult to find (it would've been a lot easier if he could stay focused. However, when you're pondering about smiling, a pretty voice, and wondering why people are looking at you like that, staying focused is sort of hard). Mitch rounded a corner and spotted the door.

He halted.

Mitch hadn't really _thought_ about it until now...but the prettiest voice was behind that door, waiting for him. It brought him back. It made him try. It had begged with him, pleaded with him, talked to him and held his left hand and pressed the pair of lips it owned to his left hand and forehead and brought newness and wetness and change and _brought him back_ the pretty nice chocolate voice _brought him back_ and made him _try_ and Mitch was here because the prettiest voice asked him to _try_ and oh my fucking sweet mother of-

"Move, boy!" Somebody barked, their voice gruff.

Said boy spun around on his heel and took a step to the side at the same time. Sitting in one of those weird contraptions that were chairs but with wheels was a older man, his face lined with wrinkles, his expression stressed. He was obviously trying to go somewhere, and Mitch was obviously in his way. His almost nonexistent voice breathed an apology and he moved completely out of the old man's way.

"You younglings these days, I swear to heaven above..." The old man muttered, wheeling slowly past Mitch. And IV that was similar to the one Mitch had had stuck in his arm when he was laying on his bed was trailing behind the old man just as slowly. "Standin' in the middle of the hall like you've got nowhere to go in life. Eh, when I was a boy, we had no choice, we had to move or we were trampled. No, no, you get to take your time, blasted kid, go on and waste it."

Mitch just stared as the old man lifted his gaze to meet his eyes that were the dark brown color of trauma.

"You're lookin' lost, boy." The old man coughed dryly. "More lost than most folks I know. I'll tell you, I'll tell you: don't waste your time. Use it. Wisely. Me, I don't have barely any time left. But you...by the look of ya, you've got a boatload. A _boatload_. So don't waste it."

The small man with pictures on his skin nodded his head. Surprisingly he understood. He had time. How much, well, that number wasn't sure, yet he'd do his best not to waste it. He'd try.

What did the word _waste_ mean? Or _boatload_ , what was a _boatload?_

Coughs burst from the old man. Mitch took a step back, curious worried causious, and the old man spared him one last glance before heading down the hall until he rolled through a door and it was closed behind him. Nobody had been watching the exchange, so nobody noticed when the brunette stayed frozen in his spot as he tried to comprehend the words _waste_ and _boatload_. He silently gave up after a minute and made his way to the meeting room door.

Mitch settled his hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath that tasted of staleness and ant...antici... _anticipation_ , that's right, and without waiting another second he opened it.

...to see Dr. Rosin standing in the middle of the room, shifting through some papers that she held in her hands.

"Where?" His bland voice whispered.

Dr. Rosin whirled deftly to face him. Mitch watched as she cleared her throat and let her features smile a tiny smile. It was a smile that he recognized; the smile that she used when she didn't want to tell him bad news but had to anyway.

"Your final friend...don't worry, he's alright." Her feminine serious tone assured, probably noticing how his expression had rapidly morphed from semi-calm to panicked. "He's just not ready to see you yet. While you were in the bathroom, I went to the room where your friends are waiting and talked with them about Kirstin. He said he needed a few more minutes before seeing you."

"Oh."

"Yes. So don't worry, he'll arrive within the next five minutes." Dr. Rosin's amber eyes flicked to regard her papers, then flicked back to Mitch. "He knows to be very careful of what he says, but...there is a reason why he was picked to visit you last, Mr. Grassi. Just be as wary as he is, don't ask too many questions this time around, and hold your curiosity back. You're too sick right now to handle having another panic attack well."

"I am okay."

"You might be okay _now_. Might. There is no guarantee, Mr. Grassi, which is also why I've decided to push back your meeting of all of your friends at once until tomorrow morning during breakfast." Mitch opened his mouth to protest this (he was perfectly able to see all of the voices that night. It wasn't even that late...right?), though Dr. Rosin silence his voice before it could make a sound. "It's way too late at night, Mr. Grassi. You're tired and they're tired. You'll see them in the morning."

The brunette knew that there was no arguing the point, so he merely whispered nothing and made his way to one of the two couches in the room and sat on the one he had while meeting the first three voices. Great.

Something in Dr. Rosin's pocket beeped. She pulled out something black with a flat surface (what was it called? A tone...no...a cone? Ugh, forget it, stupid words) and moved her finger upwards on the surface. She said, "That was your friend. He'll be down in one minute. I will leave you two alone, but his visit will be the shortest, and I will come back in ten minutes to take you to your room."

Mitch thought she sounded like a parent (aha! New word he used without even realizing!). He turned his lips up in the best smile he could muster (he could tell it was wobbly around it's edges despite his efforts), watched as she nodded at him, and opened the door and exited.

Leaving him alone. In a quiet room. For one minute.

That was plenty of time to go far away.

Except that he didn't. Mitch stayed. He stayed there, right where he was, with his throbbing legs lifting their throbbing feet from the floor and folding said throbbing legs and feet beneath his frame, holding onto his ankle with one hand and playing with a string that had come loose from his hospital shirt with his other. He stayed right there as the lighting shone in the space of the meeting room, as bugs outside chirped, as the moon rose higher and higher. It was... _peaceful_. Nice. He could've existed within that moment content.

Note the use of the word _could've_. Because, as always with the voices, they brought newness and change and nothing ever seemed to stop them.

Mitch found his eyes (the color of trauma) glued to the doorknob as it started to twist. This was it. OH FUCKING SHIT THIS WAS IT! He was going to _see_ and _hear_ and _talk_ to the pretty nice chocolate voice and sweet Jesus this is what he got for being brought back and what if they didn't like him what if they were mad like Kirstin what if what if what if...

The door opened fully, revealing the figure that had twisted it's knob.

And Mitch's entire world stopped.

Oh.

 _God._

It was a he. He was a he. The owner of the pretty nice chocolate voice was a he. Mitch had forgotten the name attached to the voice, and had soon forgotten the gender attached to it as well, but now Mitch knew that it was a he.

He was tall. So tall, and it showed just by the way he had to carry himself, as if he'd spent most of his life with his neck bent over to have to talk to all others shorter than him. His frame matched his height; broad shoulders, thinning at his waist, and legs that were as long as a mile. Hair the color of light gold rested on top of his head, combed back and shaved on its sides, and scruff of the same color grew from his heavy jaw and prominent chin. He had no eyebrows, unlike everybody else that Mitch had met; or rather, upon closer examination, he _did_ , they were just as fair as his hair and therefore were practically invisible. Small black squares were on the ends of his earlobes. Straight nose. Thin lips tinged pink.

Pretty. He was pretty. He was the prettiest thing Mitchell Grassi had ever seen in his entire life.

Then Mitch got to his eyes, and the brunette felt his heart dislodge itself from its proper place in his chest and leap up to beat in his esophagus.

His eyes were blue. Not brown or green or grey, no, his eyes were _blue_. And oh god, they were the prettiest blue, strong, snapping against the paleness of his skin so that they looked like...like... _sapphires_. Yes, that was it. They were a blue that was a mix of emotions, the kind of blue that held you to the ground, the kind of blue that sent tingles down your spine.

Mitch, for the first time in the longest he could remember, had utterly and completely no idea what words were. He didn't know his name, or why he was in the hospital, or what color his own eyes were or what flash cards were and who was Dr. Rosin and what was a smile and what were voices.

His thoughts had been replaced not by a question mark, not by words that were tied to the ground, but by the image of _him_.

Oh god. _Oh god._

Then he _spoke._

"Are you alright?" He asked, his tone concerned and his nonexistent eyebrows pulling together.

Mitch almost had another panic attack right then and there. Because this pretty human being owned the pretty nice chocolate voice, the prettiest voice belonged to _him_ , he was the one, he was the one who asked Mitch to try and brought him back. And his voice, semi-deep and carrying a familiar hum, was better than chocolate, it was more than pretty, it was a word that the small man had no name for and in that brief second he despised himself for being unable to procure one.

The brunette, therefore, didn't say anything. He watched as the pretty man closed the door behind him, just like Avi and Kevin and Kirstin had, and walked using his long legs over to where Mitch sat. Wait...he wasn't going to sit on the opposite couch? What?

He spoke again. "Can I sit next to you?"

This time Mitch managed to answer in the form of a nod. His mind was working faster than it ever had before, so fast that it almost hurt. God, was the pretty nice chocolate voice still warm? Did his hand still feel like a puzzle piece? And what the hell was his name? It was on the tip of Mitch's tongue, taunting, confusing.

The pretty man who owned the prettiest voice placed his body carefully beside Mitch's much smaller one. He shifted so that he was both facing the brown-eyed man but also had his feet on the floor. He held onto his left wrist with his right hand and stared at Mitch while Mitch just stared back. They took each other in, although Mitch had already taken the other man in, he didn't mind doing it again. Now that he was up close, the brunette noticed that their were bags underneath the pretty man's eyes, and dark purple shadows, too. There were also razor-thin lines that decorated the corners of his blue eyes, similar to the many lines on the old man in the chair with wheels, though there were no other similar lines on his face which meant he was young and not old.

Maybe he was around Mitch's age.

Actually...Mitch didn't even know how old he himself was. How old was he? Certainly not _too_ old, right, he didn't have any lines around his face or anything. How old was too old, what if he was already too old and his face wasn't showing it?

The pretty man let Mitch think and worry to himself for a minute, before he said, "My name is Scott."

This was new. The voices tended not to introduce themselves until he asked. And he had just said...Scott? The name Scott? Holy shit, that rang a bell in the back of his head that hurt a little, who cared, because he remembered now, Scott was the name of the prettiest voice (like he needed more evidence).

Finding himself wanting to return the favor, Mitch blinked his eyes at Scott and whispered shyly, "My name is Mitch."

The pretty voice smiled. It didn't contain as much light as Avi or Kevin's, didn't hold coldness like Kirstin's, his smile was tired and hopeful and _real_. He looked like he wanted to say something, opened his mouth, closed it and reconsidered, then opened his mouth again. "Hi, Mitch." He seemed to hesitate before adding in a softer tone, "How's it going?"

Mitch was still in some sort of shock due to the fact that um, he was _talking_ to the prettiest voice, and listening to it, and...HELLO! He had to say something, not just sit there like he was stupid. His breath was uneven, so his next word stuttered and jumped like his words had when Kirstin's emotion-that-he-couldn't-name had flooded through his veins and made him feel badly weird. "G-Good."

"That's good." Scott smiled a bit wider. Wow, his lips were a lot more pink up close. "Dr. Rosin told me not to tell you too much, because..." His voice trailed off. Mitch realized it was because the small brunette was mouthing the sentence as he said it; _Because I need to learn on my own._

"How many times has that been said to you tonight?"

Mitch picked up on the teasing lit in Scott's pretty tone. Something unfamiliar and foreign yet at the same time blatantly _there_ , slumbering in his bones and only awakening just now, bubbled up and made his tongue curl to whisper the words, "Only, oh, one hundred or so."

The blonde raised one invisible eyebrow. "And how often?"

There it was again, that bubbling, sweet poison that gave the words escaping him a bit of a taunting bite. "Only, oh, every five seconds or so."

Scott appeared stunned for a second, Mitch's expression matching his (had he really said that? It sounded so...so...what was the word...), before the taller man let loose a quiet laugh. Hotness rushed to fill the small man's cheeks, yet another unfamiliar feat. Shit, one after the next after the next after the next...so much newness so very fast.

"Well, I'm sure that'll be the last time you hear it tonight." Scott assured, his tone losing it's lit and going back to its normal prettiness. "We remind you because we don't want you to get hurt remembering things too quickly." Here he paused. Mitch wondered why (the prettiest voice seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden). "I don't want to have a repeat of what happened...with, um, with Kirstin."

The brunette slowly processed his words. His features blanked as he thought; so basically, the man with sapphires for eyes wasn't going to say something that would make him have another panic attack? Oh. That was okay. That was great, actually, the panic attack (seriously, what did the word _attack_ mean?) hadn't exactly been an amazing experience. It had made his head throb. Anything that _didn't_ make his head throb he was okay with.

"Okay." His quiet voice whispered. Mitch watched as the tall blonde sitting beside him sigh through his nose, as if he had been holding in his breath. Why would he do that? Maybe that was why he had been uncomfortable, anybody would be if they had to hold their breath for that long, jeez.

"Okay." Scott repeated, another smile tilting the corners of his mouth upwards. This smile wavered a bit, unlike his previous ones. Strange. "I've also been told to tell you anything to wanna know-"

Anything he wanted to know? _Anything?_ That was a power that should _not_ be placed in Mitch's hands, for he would abuse it without shame (though, he had asked Kevin and Avi questions, and they had told him all he wished to know about them and more. But Scott...Scott was _different_ somehow).

"-so ask away."

And that is how his first conversation with the pretty nice chocolate voice went. Mitch was content beyond measure, sitting on his spot on one end of the couch while Scott sat on the other, listening as his voice chatted at whatever inquiry was asked of him. He talked a _lot_ , not that the brunette minded, and used his hands to gesture and for emphasis. Mitch learned that his last name was Hoying (dammit, that point at the back of his head started to ache again), that Scott, like Avi, was a singer (and called himself a 'baritone', whatever the hell _that_ meant), and that his apartment was two hours away from the hospital they were at; that the prettiest voice was 6'3 (Mitch couldn't resist asking just how tall he was. The man could reach a hand up and touch the ceiling), was particularly attached to this food by the name of peanut butter, and liked to play a sport called _volleyball_. Occasionally he would stop, pause, or look uncomfortable or sad, but nonetheless he answered whatever Mitch asked. It was...

"...bad at literally every single sport besides it. I tried basketball once, because, y'know, I'm tall, but I was _terrible_ at it. Like beyond shitty. It was horrible." Scott shook his head at himself. Mitch tried out smiling, and it seemed to work, because the blonde smiled back. "The coach was the grumpiest person on the planet, I swear, and when I let a boy knock me over he told me to-"

The doorknob rattled, interrupting the mostly one-sided conversation. It was, of course, Dr. Rosin arriving at the ten-minute mark of the discussion. Scott's tone pattered off into nothing the moment she appeared.

"Mr. Grassi, Mr. Hoying, your time is up for today." Her serious feminine voice announced. Mitch blinked at her for a second, before his sight shifted to the owner of the prettiest voice, who also blinked for a second and then nodded.

Scott cast Mitch a long glance. The brunette just stared back at him, allowing his brain to slowly memorize the information about the pretty nice chocolate voice that he had learned. Neither man gave up the contest until Dr. Rosin cleared her throat, causing the 'baritone's' eye contact to swivel in her direction. She tilted her head and said, "I apologize for your visit being so short, but it's late, and Mr. Grassi needs sleep. And from what I've heard..." Dr. Rosin's expression turned as equally blank as her temporary patients. "...you do as well, Mr. Hoying."

Mitch watched Scott's jaw clench. "I've been sleeping fine, thanks."

"Sure you have."

Very quickly the mood in the room jumped from easygoing to something bad. Or negative. Yes, that was the word, _negative_. Two different voices faced off, while a much more bland one stood on the side, wishing to know whom they should root for. An unbalanced silence basked over the room. His doctor and his favorite voice (he'd admit it, the prettiest voice was his favorite. What could he do about it?) did not stare, but _glared_ at each other in a mean way that Mitch strongly disliked.

He breathed the name of the pretty voice that belonged to the pretty, tired, but chatty man. "Scott."

Said person ripped their glare from Dr. Rosin and replied with a gentle, "Yes?"

The brunette swallowed, attempting to work some saliva into his mouth, worrying over his next words. Was it too good to be true? Would the voice say yes? Mitch had to stop thinking about him as the prettiest voice, even though how pretty both Scott and his voice were was obvious, Scott Hoying had a proper title and that title was Scott Hoying. He unlocked a hand from grasping his own knee and made a motion between the two of them. "To...tomorrow?"

"Yes." Scott smiled, another long breath escaping his parted lips. Seriously. Stop thinking about his lips and how pink they are. Really. "Of course I'll talk with you tomorrow. I'll eat breakfast with you if you want, and Avi, Kevin, and Kirstin will eat breakfast with you too. We can do that, right?" The last question was directed at Dr. Rosin.

She had lost the blankness her expression had gained. "Yes, you can. I was actually just about to inform you of that. Will that be alright with you, Mr. Grassi?"

Mitch had to stop himself from nodding his head so hard that it fell from his shoulders. Could heads even do that? Seemed possible. He quirked a trying smile at Scott, who smiled back (dammit how did people make smiling look so easy?).

And then the owner of the prettiest voice got up from his spot on the couch, looking exhausted but amazing all at once, waved at Mitch, and told him goodbye with his fingers gripping the doorknob of the meeting room.

"See you tomorrow morning, Mitch." The baritone didn't smile, he _grinned_ , and the small man didn't know just why until he realized that his bland voice had whispered a nearly silent, "Bye, Scott." In response.

Then the door closed and the pretty voice was gone until tomorrow.

Until tomorrow. Which implied that he would be seeing the prettiest voice again, he would be seeing Scott again, holy shit holy shit yay mother of flying crap that had been amazing, god, Scott had been amazing, he was honest like Kevin and nice like Avi and like cold Kirstin he had taught Mitch something new, it was that sweet poison on his tongue that made it curl a certain way, and damn, it had felt good to let some of that poison seep into his bland voice to give it some _flavor_.

"Mr. Grassi." Dr. Rosin's words reached Mitch's ears. "I hate to sound like a mother, but it's time for you to rest. You've had quite the day." The brunette picked himself up and walked to her. His brain was buzzing. He'd never felt so light. As the two made their way down the hall, her talk continued. "Good gracious, I don't know why I let you see him, I can already feel the adrenaline in your body skyrocketing. And if he had triggered another panic attack...I don't know if I could've brought you back, Mr. Grassi, the kind of panic attack you had was not normal. By the way, your friends will be entering your room tomorrow morning to eat with you, so...Mr. Grassi. Mr. Grassi!"

Fingers were snapping in front of his face. Oh. Where was he? Oh, oh right, he was standing in front of the door to his room, unmoving, far away. He collected himself in the next moment and opened the door. The windows in his room were even darker than before, meaning that it was more late at morning...night! Sorry, night...than it had been when Mitch had left to go meet the voices. Shit, that had all happened today?

Wow. Today had been busy; finding out what he looked like, meeting Dr. Eaton, his short nap full of that grey animal Wyatt, meeting Kevin and Avi and cold Kirstin, and meeting the prettiest voice, seeing it, hearing it...Scott fascinated Mitch like nothing else ever had. At least, as far back as he could remember.

Which, if he was being honest, truly wasn't that far.

...which was slightly concerning.

But what could he do about it?

It only took thirty seconds for Mitch to climb into his hospital bed and pull its thin sheets up over his body. The _adrenaline_ that was apparently _skyrocketing_ was wearing off fast. Time to go dark. The good news is though, Mitch would see the voices in the morning. He'd had no guarantee of that the day before. Now he had a 'see you tomorrow, Mitch', and that was more than enough for him.

Especially if the words had been spoken by that pretty man. With his pretty voice.

Specifically a pretty man with a pretty voice by the name of Scott.

* * *

Lights. Noise. Screaming, lots of screaming, god, didn't that hurt their voices?

Voices didn't like to scream. Or maybe they did. Maybe voices liked to scream at the right time. So...right now was the right time to scream? Why?

Mitch got his answer faster than he expected.

"Thank you guys!" A familiar voice yelled happily, their voice booming around the large space, vibrating every seat and shattering eardrums in the best way possible. "We love you!"

"We love you guys!"

"You guys rock!"

"Thank you all so much, this means the world to us!"

Three voices, all also familiar, came in rapid succession, one right after another. Mitch looked to his left to see Scott and Kevin, holding microphones to their lips and smiling huge smiles that nearly broke their faces. Scott had the gleam of tears in his shocking blue eyes, his cheeks flushed pink, his lips as pink as ever. Kevin had his other hand raised in the air in a wave to the screaming voices, who screamed louder when he waved with both hands.

The brunette glanced to his right to see Kirstin and Avi clutching microphones as well, and making hearts with their hands and grinning just as wide. They looked sweaty and energized, pumped, revved up and high off of something. It was _singing_ , he realized, they were high off of singing.

His own smile, finally feeling right and not twisted or wobbly, grew on his face. Mitch blew a kiss to the screaming voices, who increased their volume when he did so, and lifted his microphone to his mouth to say, "You guys are the sweetest! Thanks so much!"

Scott, still smiling ear-to-ear, walked over to Mitch and practically crushed his bones, that's how tight their hug was. Everything got really quiet, even though in all actuality the screaming only escalated, but it was quiet inside of the small man's head as he fisted the back of the tall blonde's shirt and tightened his own grip further. The smell of masculinity and Old Spice and some sort of mouthwatering cologne that reminded him of the woods and forests swirled around Mitch, encasing him in a bubble that was not at all private but was his, his and Scott's.

His best friend loosened his hold only slightly, and tilted his head to whisper in his semi-deep tone words that would make Mitch blush with pride for days afterward. "You're amazing. Just wanted to let you know."

The man with dark brown eyes, when they had properly pulled apart, was staring straight into impossibly blue eyes as the urge to stand on his toes and press their foreheads together was close to uncontrollable. Scott just looked at him with so much intensity, and sometimes Mitch just couldn't resist giving the sexy man a run for his money when it came to teasing.

However, Mitch didn't follow through with his thoughts that were screaming just as loud as the audience in front of them. He only squeezed his best friend's hands and winked. They finally put a few feet of distance between them and repeated their words of 'thank you all!' and 'we love you guys so much!' because they had never and would never be more true.

This was life, this was living, this was freedom and recklessness and happiness and everything, singing was everything, he was humming all over, Mitch wouldn't need to drink a single drop of alcohol ever again because he could get drunk off of a combination of _this_ and Scott and SpongeBob Squarepants-

As Mitch took in a breath to once more yell his thanks, suddenly it melted. The screams silenced, the lights had turned off to leave him in the dark, and he couldn't move anymore. What the hell? Where was the concert? Where was the band? The questions danced and spun and jolted around his brain over and over and over until they started to fizzle out, and with their disappearance the memory began to fade.

Blackness behind his eyes slowly morphed into dark red, and then light orangish, and then almost yellow. There were no more faint questions in his head now.

With a start, Mitch Grassi woke up from his sleep, his eyes snapping open to reveal his hospital room. He had known he was in his room before his eyes opened, anyway, he could smell the sharp staleness of it assaulting his nose.

He just lay there blinking for a long time. Something chirped outside. God, the colors pictures voices people newness made his brain show him some weird stuff. Usually the brunette could recall what his mind had showed him while he went dark, but most times, like now, he didn't remember a single thing when he woke up.

The back of his head was hurting. Would its throb ever leave him alone?

Pressing his hands to the sides of his head to hold the incoming pounding at bay, Mitch turned over in bed and sighed. There was most likely a reason why he rarely remembered the colors pictures voices people newness that his brain showed him.

They must not be very pretty.


End file.
